


Between Change and Balance

by Allayas



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Romance, Sexual Content, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allayas/pseuds/Allayas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asami Sato's life had changed so dramatically with Korra. She never really noticed how much had changed until the Avatar left... how much she had changed.</p><p>Takes place between Books 3 and 4. While mostly canon-compliant, some details may differ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> Occurs roughly a year after Korra left Republic City.

“Night shifts? The labor union will _love_ this,” a man scoffed.

“How will you manage overtime pay,” a concerned voice chimed.

 _Just convince the businessmen to invest in your bridge_. Asami’s eyebrow twitched. “Everyone, let’s be cal-”

“Cabbage Corps never would have called for _night_ labor,” interrupted an elderly man; stacks of binders and files toppled as he pounded the table, followed by the indistinct bickering of two dozen other men and women in suits. Soon, the other dozen architects joined the quarrel, waving their schematics around, shoving briefcases and contracts out of the way. A metal bending officer pinched the bridge of his nose as two people shouted on either end of him; he pushed his feet against the floor, sliding his chair away from the table.

“The director has no plan for custom supports! What about the vines?”

“Forget the vines! What about worker safety insurance?”

“This is a disaster!

“Everyone QUIET!” Asami roared. They all froze with arms outstretched, papers falling to the floor, ties dangling over the table. The black haired woman’s eyes darted to the ones who were quite literally out of their chairs, leaning over the table and on her map of Republic City. She coughed while glaring at them until gradually, one by one, they all settled into their seats, fidgeting and pulling on their collars. The factory room echoed with the sound of a metal chair scraping against the tile floor as the metal bending officer pulled his chair back towards the table. “I know that there has never been night construction work on a large scale,” Asami began, “but Roku Bridge is critical to Republic City’s infrastructure; we can’t move on without fixing this first.”

“Director Sato.” A young man cleared his throat. “I understand you want to finish this quickly, but it simply must be done during normal work hours. Otherwise, there will be noise complaints from the nearby residents, and the builders won’t want to work night shifts when they’re supposed to be going home.” The politician adjusted his tie. “I know you don’t like it, but as representative of that particular district…”

“Mr. Gao,” Asami interjected, standing up from the schematic table that now doubled for board meetings, “since you are a representative, tell me, how do the people of Flameo feel about driving an extra forty minutes to Downtown each morning, since Roku Bridge collapsed?” She leaned over the table. “How do they feel about the five blackouts in two weeks? Or the seven times in the past month alone they’ve lost hot water and local roads to rupturing water mains?” The wooden surface creaked as the director’s outstretched palm supported her increasing weight on the table; the other hand nearly hit a nearby woman’s head as it flew through the air alongside Asami’s rising voice. “If we only work during the day, this project will take close to a month. That’s a month before we can even begin examining the water pipes and power lines, let alone fix them.” At first, building new roads and pipes over and around the spirit vines had been a matter of necessity, but now the vines were a long term source of damage; she didn’t know why, but she knew that everything had to be rebuilt. Everything.

The young man raised a finger and opened his mouth, but an older woman placed her hand on his shoulder, shaking her head. He folded his arms and leaned back into his chair with a grumble.

“Good. Moving on. I won’t block the local roads longer than necessary,” Asami said as she marked a few circles on the map. “And these locations will be reappropriated as warehouses and staging platforms for our equipment. We’ll work on it 24/7, keeping the heavy machinery minimal during the night.” She shot a glare at Mr. Gao, along with the four other district representatives present, before continuing. “We’ll finish in eleven days, starting now with a review of the bridge schematic.”

“The girl’s delusional, just like Hiroshi was,” an older man from Cabbage Corps sneered, nudging an elbow at his neighbor as he got up from the chair. Asami pressed a shaking fist to her side. Of course the Cabbage Corps representative would compare her to her father. “Future Industries is run by a naive and spoiled brat,” he continued. “Raiko’s a fool to name you Director of Renovations. Minimal heavy machinery? Consecutive night shifts? Hah! The builders will sooner go on strike!” He shook his head. “You have no experience ruling the common citizen. They won’t work for you much longer.” He began to leave, a few of the others grating their metal chairs against the floor as they got up to depart with him.

“I have no experience,” she scoffed, the fire in her voice turning all heads in the room, “with the workers under my employ for the past year?” Asami’s eyebrow twitched as she grit her teeth. No one was going to walk out of _her_ factory with the last word. “I understand that they are people, who are not to be ruled first of all. This isn’t the Earth Kingdom, this is Republic City, and as the unentitled commoners of this city, they and their families suffer from the inadequate roads, sewage leaks, and blackouts daily.” Asami slammed her hand on the table. “I personally work with them so that they can return to a normal life, with all their basic needs covered, as soon as possible. Bending or no bending, rich or poor, we _all_ have to work to put everyone’s lives back together...” The wooden planks of the table creaked; Asami leaned forward, shouting until her throat felt raw. “...and if you can’t understand that, then get OUT OF MY FACTORY.” She glowered at the five people standing, a gloved finger pointed to the door. Her feelings had transformed from abstaining from a colorful vocabulary to wanting to bash her knee into his abdomen; the image of a snarling Hiroshi Sato stood out in her mind as she locked her eyes on the aged man, burning into his soul. “And you will never speak of my father again.”

He was the first to move while the others held their breath, mumbling to himself as he left; Asami glared until his bulky frame had passed through the doorframe. While a couple sat back down, the two others followed him out, along with two more that got up from their seats. “Crazy bitch,” one spat as he pushed past Asami. She took a deep breath, pressing a fist to her side, a fist that could have so easily slammed his jaw shut… As she exhaled, she unclenched her fingers. She had business to do; she’d already gone over the line. What was wrong with her? Her head throbbed again. There were probably bags under her eyes, and the city government wasn’t giving her enough money... She needed everyone’s help: each and every one of these men and women who were uncomfortably looking anywhere except at her. _I need to give a speech, motivate them to-_

“Director Sato, how _do_ you intend to get significant work done at night without the use of heavy machinery?” A middle aged woman - Marcella was her name - filled the silence with her question, and Asami smiled as she straightened her posture, easing her mind back into the schematic, the plan...

“The ruins of the old bridge are still there. We can reinforce the existing steel frame to build around the spirit vines using metalbenders and boats.”

“You’ve never called for several consecutive night shifts before,” a different voice interjected. “What if the builders really do protest?”

“There are plenty of people looking for jobs. I can hire a night crew if I have to.”

“Will building around the vines really be safe? With our limited understanding of the spirit wilds, won’t it be dangerous?”

“By that logic, half the city is unsafe, but we have to fix what we can.”

Several more questions were answered; compromises were eventually reached; some business partners were made, and others… walked out the door. The meeting adjourned as the warm glow of a sun-setting sky crept through the windows. Asami shook several hands as she bid the various individuals goodbye before turning to see who was left. _And why are they yelling?_

A few architects argued over the schematics and overlays, with plenty of shouting and playful punches to the arm. The two young women and two young men reminded her of the old Team Avatar. She thought of Mako, Bolin, and… Korra. Oh, Korra. When President Raiko first approached her about the city’s repairs, she’d refused, reserving her time for Korra’s return. But weeks passed, the roads stayed broken or breaking, and Korra neither came nor wrote back...

Asami decided that tonight, she’d write to Korra again. It’d been too long since she’d last sent word to her friend in the South. Months. With that thought, she turned away and left her factory.

“Director Sato.” A hand caught her shoulder as she stepped outside; the black haired woman turned to see the metalbending officer, standing in the doorway. “I’m sorry to keep you, but I want to let you know about some of the areas you marked on the map in Dragon Flat Boroughs.”

“Go on.” Asami furrowed her brows.

“Yes ma’am. Since they were mostly evacuated after the Unalaq crisis, the Boroughs have been a haven for gang activity. It’d be a bad place to set up expensive construction equipment. Within gang territory, machinery could easily be stolen, or your workers extorted for yuans.”

Asami bit her lip. “I need the location. We can’t rebuild the bridge without setting up on both sides. Machines can be replaced, but I have to make sure my employees are safe. Can the police help secure the area by tomorrow?”

“I’ll ask Chief Beifong.”

“No no, I’ll take care of it.” Asami smiled. “Thanks for the help, Lee.”

“Just doing my job.” Lee gave a slight bow and nodded. “Director.” Then he was off.

 _Call Chief Beifong, write Korra a letter._ With those thoughts, Asami turned the keys in the ignition of her Satocycle, drove through the smooth streets that she had re-paved a few months back, and unlocked the door to the Sato Estate. Soon, she was staring out the window with the mansion’s phone in her hand, admiring the distant view of Satomobiles speeding down the roads. She idly punched in several numbers while watching a gray, older Satomobile disappear through a run down alley.

“Who’s calling,” a voice snapped.

“Sorry to bother you so late, Lin. It’s Asami.”

A sigh. “What is it, Sato?”

“My company is rebuilding Roku Bridge tomorrow, and I need the area around it secured. Lee told me that Dragon Flats was gang territory.”

“He’s right. There’s a reason why Roku Bridge wasn’t rebuilt before Raiko put you in charge.” Lin groaned. “How long’s it gonna take?”

“Twelve days, max. We’re working around the clock, day in and day out.”

“Could be worse. I’ll do what I can, but it might not be enough if the Triple Threats want your cargo. I’m spread thin already. You’ll be lucky if I can send four men your way.”

“Why would they be interested in construction material anyways? It’s just machines, steel beams, and concrete.” Asami frowned. Gangs had never been a problem for her since the old days of chasing them down with… Korra.

“Money is money kid, and you’re bringing state of the art machines to their backyard in a city demanding construction. But you’re right, they’re probably not after your junk. They’re more likely to go after your men and charge protection money, especially since most of them aren’t benders.”

“You can’t let that happen.” The words rushed out without thought before she paused, gathering herself. “I can replace the machines, but everyone needs to feel safe working for Future Industries. Republic City is my home as much as theirs, and I won’t have them living in fear while rebuilding it.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. “You’ve got a big heart, Sato. I can’t make you promises about the numbers, but I’ll send you my best officers.”

“Thank you so much, Lin.” Asami smiled. Even if there weren’t enough police to watch over everyone, at least the most competent would be there.

“Don’t mention it, kid.” A click followed; Lin had hung up before Asami could say anything else.

She sighed, cradling her face into her palm as she leaned against a wall. She counted her fingers on the free hand, muttering the names of locations and routes, groaning as she went past five, scowling as even the hand holding her head held up five fingers. Lin’s best case scenario just wasn’t enough. Four men were too few.

The black haired woman pulled her wavy hair out of her face before picking up a phonebook, running her fingers along the sides of its pages as she flipped through. Some of the corners were yellowed and worn, while others looked untouched. A ceiling light buzzed overhead, replacing the soft orange glow from the windows with a white glare, as the sun crept under the horizon. Her fingers stopped at the feeling of wrinkled edges. Black marker circled a few numbers; she sat down in the nearby armchair as she began dialing numbers again. This wasn’t the first time Future Industries had to hire some muscle. It would be easy enough.

 

When the hour had passed well into the evening, Asami was opening a fresh bottle of Flameo Tongue Bourbon from the shelf in a dimly lit personal study. Her head hurt from the long day’s negotiations. She clenched her jaw as she thought about the bridge: the uncertainty of measuring custom built supports, the Triple Threats, even the outburst from Cabbage Corps might bring trouble... With all the work she had to handle, Asami longed for a tea date with a friend. Someone to talk to would be nice. An image of her father playing Pai Sho in the park came to mind, followed immediately by his snarling face in the open cockpit of a Mecha-suit, and his words: _“I now see there is no chance to save you!”_

She dipped her head back with the shot glass on her bottom lip, rolling the burning liquor around in her mouth before gulping it down and closing her eyes, feeling the warm tingle in her chest. Asami hummed as she felt the buzz, letting her mind move away from the stress on her tense shoulders, away from the responsibilities of Future Industries, and held onto the first pleasant feeling that came to her. Korra. She set the bottle and the glass down on the desk, turned on the lamp, and laid out a sheet of paper with two words:

“Dear Korra,”

Asami pressed her temple with two fingers and pulled the chair in. When Korra had first left, the letters were easy; she wanted to keep Korra in the loop, just to let her best friend know that she cared. But when there were no replies, Asami grew nervous. Was Korra alright? Was her writing uninteresting? She felt an enormous pressure to make her letters like she made her machines: more helpful and better than the last. But Asami wasn’t a wordsmith, and without any feedback from her friend… well, how was she supposed to know what to say? She groaned, resting her forehead on the table with an audible thud. “Korra, what will get you to answer me? I miss you so much.” Well, she could write that. Again. For the dozenth time. Dad taught me how to write business letters, not... With a groan and another sip of bourbon, she picked up a pen and began writing.

...after tossing a crumpled paper into a nearby waste bin, Asami took a third dose of the Flameo Tongue and pulled out a fresh piece of paper. She needed to be more open. “Dear Korra…”

...as she pulled the bottle itself away from her lips and tore two pages in half, letting them fall to the floor, Asami began writing on yet another sheet. She had to be natural and honest, especially if she wanted Korra to respond in kind. “Korra…”

 

_Korra,_

_Renovations are still a pain. Even after the President named me in charge of repairing the damages, I have to fight with stupid district representatives, ornery businessmen, and snobby politicians who don’t trust me. Just today, five people walked out in the middle of a meeting. You might have enjoyed seeing me tear the businessman from Cabbage Corps apart… but I don’t want you to worry about any of this. I’ll fix this city, no matter what. In other words, water is wet, and I miss you._

_I miss talking with you, or even just goofing off together. Please remember, if you want anything from me, just ask. I’d drop everything I’m doing here in Republic City to see you for a while, but more than that, it would mean the world to hear from you. Life is just not the same without..._

Asami took a deep breath and sighed. If she drank any more, she’d never finish this letter.

_...without my best friend. I mean it. I want you back in my life. But please don’t rush your healing; I’ll wait for you, for as long as you need. Just let me help if I can, okay?_

_With all my heart,_  
_Asami Sato_

 

“Heh, I never would have written this sober.” _Does that mean I shouldn’t send it?_ Asami hadn’t sent Korra a letter in five months. She had to send some message, really any message would do. After glancing around the wastebin and the floor, seeing the several crumpled and torn pages, the black haired woman delicately folded the page and placed it inside an envelope, sealed it, and placed her Satocycle keys on top. She’d mail it first thing in the morning.

A tipsy Asami made her way out of the study and into her own room. After changing into her sleeping gown, she all but threw herself onto the bed, dragging a heavy blanket over her body and a soft pillow under her head. Closing her eyes and letting out a deep huff, she set her mind to ease, occasionally reminding her brain to sleep. _Sleep. You had a good bit to drink._ Sleep. Actually, a glass of water was a good idea. She sat up and poured a glass from the pitcher at her nightstand, drank, then curled up back onto the bed, slipping under the covers properly this time. _Okay, sleep now._

Tomorrow’s events unfolded in her mind’s eye: she dropped her letter in the mailbox, set to work on the bridge, got called to take a look at yet another pipe rupture that damaged a new road, and the mailman couldn’t get to her estate. She frowned. _That’s unrealistic. Even if that happens, I’ll drop it off at the post office myself._ Her imagination foresaw yet another absurd outcome: the letter gets put on a ship, sent to the Southern Water Tribe, and then burned by White Lotus sentries. She frowned again. _They’d never do that. Korra has every right to see her own mail, especially from her friends… right?_ It wasn’t sounding like such an absurd possibility… after all, Asami had sent over a dozen letters, none of which were ever answered. But surely that couldn’t be it… No, there was no way. Right?

Asami growled in frustration as she bounced out of her bed, dressed into her usual black and red jacket and pants, and grabbed the letter and her keys from the study. Yes, drinking and driving was a terrible idea, though she still revved the engine of her Satocycle. She didn’t care, and after speeding into the city, her vehicle was parked by the Downtown docks. A motorboat crossed the bay to Air Temple Island.

When she arrived, she realized that she had no plan. Leaving a note for Tenzin made sense, until she realized her concern over White Lotus censorship could extend to Tenzin’s home; after all, the White Lotus were stationed around here. And even if she asked Tenzin directly, he’d just use the White Lotus anyways. Maybe there was someone within the White Lotus he trusted in particular? But she couldn’t just wake Tenzin up in the middle of the night… she’d have to come back tomorrow. And when would she even find time? She was already planning to pull a sleepless 48 hours overseeing the initial stages of Roku Bridge. Dragging her feet, she trudged her way from the temple back to her motorboat.

“Asami? What happened?” Tenzin, followed by a White Lotus guard, rushed to her side.

“Tenzin, it’s fine, I just - I acted on a dumb impulse.” She waved off the guard, who waited for Tenzin’s nod before leaving the two alone. Asami took a few steps towards the airbender.

“Surely it had to be important to bring you to the island at this hour. Why don’t you come inside where it isn’t cold, and I’ll make us a pot of tea?” Tenzin gestured behind him.

“I need to go home…I have a, a project, to oversee tomorrow.” Asami scowled at herself. In her head, her words were more coherent. Eloquent, even. She had thought herself well composed until she had begun speaking out loud.

Tenzin raised an eyebrow. “I see. Wouldn’t it be better if you stayed here, then? You can use one our guest rooms, like the old days, and get a good night’s sleep as soon as possible.”

Asami smiled, easing her shoulders back. “Thank you, Tenzin.”

“Of course.” They entered the temple, quietly walking down the main hall together. “But may I ask what the impulse was that brought you here? Perhaps something to do with the envelope you’ve been holding?”

“Oh, this?” She didn’t remember when she had begun clutching the envelope to her chest, but she lowered it while sheepishly smiling. “It’s… it’s just a letter for Korra.”

Tenzin smiled back. “I’m sure she appreciates your every word.”

“Heh.” Asami looked away, down at the floor. “She’s never written back… not once.”

“You too?”

“Yeah.” Asami pursed her lips, letting the sound of her shoes clacking against wooden planks fill the air before replying. “I take it you’ve been writing her a lot?”

“Twice a month. I want her to know that she’s remembered here.”

“Wow. That’s really thoughtful.” Asami had written weekly letters, which dwindled to monthly, then to nothing at all for five entire months. She wanted to kick herself; how could she let her own insecurities get in the way of reaching out to Korra? “It’s a shame that Korra hasn’t answered you.”

Tenzin shrugged. “I figure she hasn’t written back because… well. I’m an old man. She’s probably tired of hearing me talk so much.”

“Tenzin, Korra thinks very highly of you, not just as her airbending teacher but also as her fah... family.” Asami didn’t know where the swell of emotion in her chest was coming from, but she reached out to Tenzin’s shoulder, holding him firmly in place. “Even when Korra turned you away, you were always there when she needed you again. She told me about that, what happened at the Tree of Time. And Zaheer? She let herself be taken by the Red Lotus because they threatened you and your family. That’s how much you mean to her; she would sacrifice herself for you.”

Tenzin only blinked for a while before looking up at the ceiling. “I… You’re right. I can’t believe I ever... You know,” he said, turning back to Asami. “I thought I was going to be the one to counsel you, but instead you’ve counseled me. While drunk, I might add.”

“Is… is it that noticeable?”

“I have many memories of a certain uncle. Come on, your room’s not far off.”

“Actually, Tenzin,” Asami began, “could I ask you for a favor? If that’s okay.”

“Of course. Just tell me what I can do.”

“...I came here because I wanted to make sure my letter got to Korra.”

“I understand. I’ll ask the White Lotus to deli-”

“It absolutely must get to Korra.” Asami held her gaze on the airbender. “I have to be sure.”

She watched as Tenzin’s eyes searched her face, or maybe even her soul. She breathed again when the airbender nodded. “You have my word.”

“Thank you.” Asami handed the letter to Tenzin, and it felt like taking off a heavy weight that had been pulling her heart down. “And… please forget this ever happened, would you?”

 

She regretted her bourbon indulgence the next morning. A hangover, however slight, was not what she needed to start her day… but she had to start it nonetheless. The groaning young woman stumbled out of bed and into the hall of the air temple. She tiptoed through the cold and still air, past the slightly open master bedroom, past a loudly snoring Meelo, past the dining room…

“Asami!” Pema called out and waved, setting a dish of steaming rice and vegetables on the table. “Why don’t you have a little breakfast before you leave?”

The black haired woman hung her head as she abandoned her stealth mission. “...thank you.” Asami pulled up a chair and sat down as Pema brought another plate and a pair of chopsticks, splitting the meal between them. She inhaled the rising steam from her portion of greens and rice and hummed as she exhaled. “Mmm… I actually can’t remember the last time I stopped to have a hot meal for breakfast.”

“Well, you are always welcome to join us for a little airbender cuisine!” Pema ate more enthusiastically than Asami did, who stared out the window more than chewed. She found it strange how calm and quiet the island was this early in the morning... Team Avatar back in the day felt so hectic between car chases and apprehending criminals, and even tense and fearful when Zaheer was at large, but there were the simpler moments, like having lunch together, or just driving down with Korra to Police Headquarters. Those were the moments that Asami felt grateful for, moments that made her feel like she was part of a family.

“Want to tell me what’s on your mind, sweetie?”

“Huh?” Asami mumbled before swallowing a piece of broccoli. “Sorry, I’m just gathering my thoughts. There’s a big construction project today.” It was true. There was.

“Uh huh,” Pema nodded, “Sounds like the sort of thing that would bring the CEO of Future Industries to our home, in the dead of night with a letter for the Avatar.”

“Yea- Oh.” Asami felt a little embarrassed. “I had... a little too much to drink.” She let out a sigh. “...and I miss my friends. It was important to me at the time. It still is important.”

“Asami, dear, have you considered telling Korra how you feel?” The mother reached across the table to hold Asami’s arm.

“Oh I have Pema, at least a dozen times. I tell her I care, I miss her, that I’d even come visit if she wanted. Stay if she asked.” She sighed, hanging her head down. “I worry she’s not reading my letters.”

“Korra’s struggling physically and spiritually, but when she finds her voice again, I believe you’ll be the very first she writes back to.”

“Really? I’m - I’m just her friend. Why would she write me first? Mako and Bolin are as much her friends as I am.”

“But she’s more than that to you, isn’t she?”

Asami’s heart pounded against her chest. Warmth colored her cheeks. “Korra’s my best friend. We’ve been through alot together; she’s special to me.” Was her crush on Korra that obvious? Yes, the tanned woman was cute, but they were strictly friends. How did Pema notice anyways? Asami had never _outrageously_ flirted with Korra in public. Why was she teasing her about it now?

“What are some of the special things you’ve done for her, or maybe did together?”

No. She couldn’t mean... “I… I was her primary caretaker for the two weeks before she left! I did it because she needed me; Mako would be awkward and Bolin’s not careful enough. It was strictly platonic! I had to be there for her when nobody else could! You have the kids, Tenzin’s too busy, her parents are… well, her parents-”

“Dear, I think you’ve just given a very good answer to your own question.”

Asami had already opened her mouth to speak but then paused as realization dawned. “You tricked me into answering myself. That was… actually rather good. I could use talent like that in my business negotiations.”

“And from the waaay you answered, I think you might be a little defensive of certain feelings.” Pema looked like she was on the verge of cackling; as Asami mentally prepared another argument, the mother waved her hand placatingly. “The important part is, I’m sure Korra’s just trying to find the right words to say. She probably wants her response to be perfect.”

“...but I’d be happy to hear anything. Anything at all.” It was all Asami wanted right now. Roku Bridge could go build itself; the black haired woman was nauseous, her heart felt heavy, and she was tired. Tired of carrying the responsibilities of the city’s repairs, her workers’ well being, and her company’s survival all on her shoulders. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it; she just felt so lonely doing it by herself. Right now, she would give up all of her work, her progress on the city, to spend one entire day with a friend. With Korra.

“I know, Asami,” Pema said. “We all would be happy to hear from her, but the best we can do is give her our trust, love, and patience. When she’s ready to open to you, be ready to accept her. Save her a place in your life.”

 _“I now see there is no chance to save you!”_ Memories of the past several months flashed through Asami’s mind, or rather the very lack of good memories became obvious; there were no outings with Korra and Bolin stuffing their faces full of noodles, no Mako chastising his brother, no Team Avatar in her Satomobile, no helping Korra with her hair… but there was the day she finally filed her papers into Hiroshi’s old office.. There were the anonymous letters she discarded, telling her to sell Future Industries before she destroyed its reputation like her father. There was the portrait she ripped off the wall. There was the family picture she threw into a box of his things. There was the fire, in the backyard, that she made from that box.

No one taught her how to deal with Cabbage Corp’s hostile takeover attempt last year, or what to think when she first felt butterflies holding Korra’s hands when comforting her in that wheelchair, or how to nurse a hangover after a long night of whiskey and tears, how to make new friends after Bolin left on that train and after Mako became a bodyguard, how to vent her anger into punching bags at the gym, how to find a new family with-

“Asami?” Pema’s voice had a tone of concern, but it was warm and loving. Caring. The same tone that Hiroshi would have used so long ago.

“Th...thank you, Pema.” Asami sniffled. “Thank you for sharing your breakfast, even though I’m not your daughter, and for giving me advice even when I didn’t…” She collapsed, throwing her face into her arms on the table, shoulders trembling. She didn’t understand why she felt like her heart was raw and bleeding, or why her stomach twisted in knots. When did she become like this? When did she let herself fall apart? Soon, a pair of arms held her as tears soaked her sleeves.

 

 


	2. Where the Horizon Joins

At Pema’s suggestion, Asami took the next day off. The cheerful mother had insisted that Asami stay for lunch; the director, in turn, insisted that even if she was taking the day off, she still had to look over her schematics. The instant that the word ‘work’ slipped through Asami’s lips, a storm between the two non-benders erupted with frenzied, gesticulating hands and long, emphatic groans. Veins pulsed, faces shifted between creased brows and appalled wide eyes… until Tenzin stumbled into the kitchen. “Can we agree to have Asami come over for dinner after she’s had a chance to look over her work?”

And so it was. The director now sat by a tree on Air Temple Island, among the green grass of their eternal-Spring yard, watching the sunset dip into the horizon over Yue Bay. Radiant, orange warmth met the vast, deep blue, fusing light with depth, mixing glowing with shimmering, to produce the beauty that graced Republic City every evening. She idly nibbled the inside of her lips, shifting her posture every several seconds; it always felt like one shoulder was raised higher than the other, but when she tried to ease the muscles along her neck, she felt a ligament twist and ache behind the shoulder blade. Now her jaws were too tense, and the pressure mounting at her temples threatened to start beating on her skull rather than gently knocking. _I’m supposed to be relaxing. Why is this so hard?_ She was about to resign herself back to the pile of papers and measurement tools that she’d abandoned several minutes ago near the tree.

“Mom says dinner will be ready in fifteen.” Jinora stood a few feet behind Asami, carrying a tray with a teapot and two cups. “Can I sit with you until then?”

“Of course, Jinora.” Asami patted the grass by her side, smiling as the airbending master took a seat. She bowed her head as she accepted the hot cup of tea with both hands, inhaling the fragrant steam before sipping. Jasmine.

“It’s a gorgeous sight,” Jinora said, nodding towards the sunset. “I forget to notice it most days.”

Asami chuckled. “I think most people do after a long afternoon.”

“Korra used to tell me about life in the city… it sounded so busy, like there was always another place to go, or another job to do.”

“It can be like that, but you make time in between. You’d go crazy if you didn’t.”

“What do you do, then?”

“Huh?”

“Sorry, I meant to ask, what do you do for fun, or to relax?”

“I…” Asami’s eyes unfocused as she pressed her dry lips together. Her throat was parched. The grass felt itchy through her pants. “...haven’t really made any free time for myself.”

“None at all?” Jinora sipped her tea, stretching her legs forward. “You must be so stressed… no wonder you looked pale this morning.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Asami quickly said. “None at all is a bit of an exaggeration.”

“Is it?” Jinora gave a quick nod towards the tree, raising her eyebrows with the gesture; Asami looked over her shoulder to see a schematic of Roku Bridge laid out on the grass, decorated by several scattered yellow sticky notes, two artist pencils, and a ruler. This conversation was not going the way Asami had expected.

“You sound as if you already knew I didn’t have free time.”

“Mmm… you’re right.”

“Well, why ask me then?”

“Because I care about you. You helped save my family… my people, really.”

“I meant…” She was taken aback briefly, just by how casually Jinora dropped that line, by the simple yet sincere warmth contained in those brown eyes: young sparkles mixed with the vivid reddish-orange iris. “It’s very sweet that you care, but why ask a question you already knew the answer to?”

“I wouldn’t say I knew the answer,” Jinora replied. Asami pressed her stare until a corner of the preteen’s mouth pulled into a smirk. “Okay, I did. Mom told me how busy you are. I wanted to know how you felt.”

“Well, your guess earlier was on point. I am stressed,” she emphasized.

“This morning…” Jinora’s voice drifted over a slight pause. “You looked like you’d been crying. I’m worried about you.”

“It’s okay really,” Asami said, waving her hand in the air. “I’m alright.” Jinora just tilted her head to the side, the edge of her mouth pulled tight in a crooked frown. “You don’t believe me?”

“No.” Jinora looked off into the distance. “A year ago, I would have, but too many people have told me that lie recently…” She quickly blushed, raising her hands by her head while turning to Asami. “I didn’t mean it as an insult! You’re great, Asami, I know you’d ne-”

Asami tried to contain her chuckles; her cheeks quivered with the dull ache of long-unused muscles. She brought one hand over her mouth as she drew in a long breath, feeling a coolness pulled through her nose. When she exhaled, she could speak with a straight face, no longer bubbling over Jinora’s adorable apology. “You caught me, master airbender. I lied.”

Jinora lit up, warm like the sunset. “You’re much less evasive about it than the others were.”

Asami returned the smile. “I’ll… take that as a compliment.”

“It is. Everyone else makes it hard. When I tried to call Kai out on his stress, he insisted I was imagining things for months,” Jinora grumbled, crossing her arms, though her shoulders were tense and the elbows pointed forward too far in the stiff posture; it was clearly exaggerated, contrasted with the more subtle, tired expression on Jinora’s face. The pout was for show, but Asami saw a sadness to the frown.

“He just doesn’t like to see you worry,” she consoled. “He means well.”

“I know he does… just like dad when he lies, just like you did. But I’m so tired of it; I can’t help if no one tells me the truth!” The seaside breeze picked up a faint chill; when it blew, the cold bit the skin of Asami’s nose and ears. She couldn’t tell if Jinora felt the same, when the girl wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them into her chest. “You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but I want you to be open with me. I promise, I’m a good friend. You can say anything, and I won’t laugh.”

Suddenly her heart was pounding. Or maybe it skipped a beat. Or maybe a dark chasm had just split open beneath her ribs, bringing with it the sharp loneliness that had been drowned in whiskey and absinthe. She couldn’t hide her glistening eyes, no more than she could stop the edges of her mouth pulling back into a bright grin as her lips pressed together. What it would mean to sit down for one night with someone who called her a friend. The orange sun was nearly touching the deep blue waters, and a thousand sparkles stretched across Yue Bay.

Jinora’s brows had creased, her palm turned upward as the girl reached out, cautious yet delicate. “Asami?”

“What’s wrong with me lately?” She gave half a chuckle while sniffing. “I cried in front of your mother, and now I’m almost crying in front of you.”

“It’s okay. I won’t tell the others.” Jinora’s hand was soon on Asami’s shoulder. “Is there… something you want to talk about? I’ll be honest, I’ve never… done this with someone older than me.”

“I’m sure it’s not that different,” Asami smiled; she paused for a moment to let her thoughts form. “Let’s just say, between rebuilding the city and running Future Industries, I’ve had a lot... weighing down on me.”

“You miss Korra, don’t you?” It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I was surprised when you didn’t go with her.”

“Believe me,” the young woman laughed, “I wanted to. I still do, but… Republic City is counting me to fix the roads and pipes. I’m kind of stuck. All I can do is hope she comes back soon.”

“Can the city wait a couple weeks for you to… take a vacation?”

“Can the small villages around the Earth Kingdom wait out the bandit attacks for a couple weeks?”

“I see your point,” Jinora sighed. “But you and Korra deserve to be together after a whole year!” Her words were very emphatic. Deserve, she had said. “It’s only right!”

Woah woah woah. Asami held her hand out, motioning a stop, while spitting out a retort. “Back up there Jinora… _Deserve_ to be together?” Jinora opened her mouth as her cheeks reddenned, but Asami wasn’t finished. “That sounds like something out of a romance novel.”

“And maybe I’m implying that it’d be perfect if you two got together. You guys were totally getting there. There’s nothing wrong with that, right? Girls are allowed to like other girls.”

“Yes, they are, but that’s not the point. Korra and I aren’t ‘getting’ anywhere. We’re friends.” Her heart thudded against her ribs. She felt a little breathless.

Jinora turned slightly away, staring intently at the sunset; her posture relaxed, or rather, her brightness dimmed and slouched. Her whole aura changed as her hands collected on her lap.  “Mom was very sick a few years ago,” she began in a low tone. “I was only eight. Grandma Katara even came all the way from the South pole to try and heal her.”

“That must have been very serious.” It was a sudden shift, both in topic and demeanor, but Asami imagined that this had to be related somehow. Maybe Jinora was opening up herself, showing vulnerability. “Did the doctors say what was wrong?”

“I just remember dad saying that, even after Mom’s fevers passed, she just felt too exhausted to get out of bed, even after trying some chi-enhancing tea that Katara brought. I nearly blew off the rooftop when I tried it.”

“There’s such a thing as chi-enhancing tea?”

“Uh huh. It’s mostly made from ginseng and kafei beans.”

“...I’m sorry, that was rude of me. Please, go on.”

“I don’t mind. Anyways, Mom got stuck in this cycle of gray and black. One week, she’d be washing dishes, trying her best to smile, and the next, she’d be running a fever in bed. Katara said it was something that happened to women after giving birth sometimes, but Mom had it particularly bad after bringing Meelo into the world.”

“That sounds terrible. I can hardly imagine Pema like that; she’s so full of life now.”

“I didn’t understand it until I saw Korra, after that whole thing with Zaheer. The way Korra looked at me, the way she tried so hard to be there for me during my anointment ceremony… her eyes were the same as Mom’s. A little smaller than they used to be, dark circles, and… wanting so badly to be alive, just for that one moment, willing for there to be a little light when there was only darkness inside.”

Asami didn’t know when her jaw had dropped. Here she was, fretting over something as petty as whether or not Korra appreciated her letters, when Jinora had remembered so much. From her story, the memories came flooding forward, rising from a forgotten place in her chest (it ached and quivered). Suddenly she was in that dressing room, tying the bun for Korra’s hair before Jinora’s ceremony. She had knelt to meet the water bender’s forlorn eyes and first took Korra’s hands into her own. Butterflies had somersaulted forward just prior to that moment.. she could feel the chill that ran through her spine when it happened, and her heart weighed like a stone, seeing Korra’s still, nearly lifeless eyes. And she could still feel the pride and giddiness that blossomed (like a solitary flower) when Korra declared her determination to be there for Jinora.  _Willing for there to be a little light when there was only darkness._

Jinora’s voice continued on after a few moments. “And don’t take this the wrong way, but you reminded me of Dad.”

“Me?” Asami practically choked on the word. “Tenzin?”

“I saw it the moment I came to thank her for coming. You were so devoted to her, not just physically, but spiritually. The way you looked at Korra just before speaking, it was like Dad.”

“So what you’re saying is…”

“He looked even more tired when Mom was with Grandma Katara for healing sessions. Just the fact that he was apart from Mom when she hadn’t healed yet took something out of him. That’s what I see in you. You were so steady with Korra, ready to rise up to anything, for her. And now you’re-”

“Less.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“But I do.” The outburst at her meeting yesterday. Her drunken adventure to Air Temple Island. Her original work plan, to stay up for 48 hours straight building the bridge… It took months, but Asami was cracking under the strain of her responsibilities. The work wasn’t hard, it was just… She didn’t know how to describe it. “You think… You think I’d really feel better if I went to see Korra?”

“GIRLS!” Pema’s voice rang out. “Dinner’s ready!”

Jinora gave her mom a look. Asami couldn’t tell what those hard eyes, what it meant when all the muscles in the girl’s face froze into one piercing gaze, but soon Pema had retreated into the house again, and Jinora turned back to normal. “I know that… you have to care a lot, a lot a lot, about Korra. I wouldn’t have seen Dad in you otherwise. Watching you two reminded me of what Dad and Mom went through, and I know they love each other.” It was coming. Asami heard the words with her mind and her heart, before her ears. “I can tell you love her.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to deal with that.”

“Is it because you… uhh, found out that you swing both ways? In the books I read, it’s always a big deal when the main character finds out she’s a little gay... “

“No, I’ve had girlfriends before, but neither of them were my best friend. It was more like…” Asami’s cogs and gears clicked through her entire vocabulary. What was it like to date her last ex-girlfriend? There was a heat that drove her forward, deep in her core; it made her fluttery at times, like she’d drifted into the clouds. “It was an exciting adventure.”

“You’re not very good with descriptions, are you?”

Asami pouted.

“What about the flips in your stomach, the tingles all over your body? No… shivers when you hold hands? Their eyes don’t twinkle like two radiant stars? You wouldn’t build a castle to see your beloved smile?”

Amusement tugged on the edges Asami's mouth into a grin. “A castle isn’t terribly out of my reach, you know.”

“With your own hands,” the bubbly girl said, her voice pointed and emphatic.

“That’s a little more work. I’d expect a dinner in return, at the least.”

“What if it was to see Korra smile? Would she still have to buy you dinner?”

Korra wouldn’t have to do jack. To see that weary face smile, just one more time, would be worth all the struggle in the… Asami caught herself mid-thought. She realized where Jinora and her romance novels got their flowery, over-the-top language from. Jinora began giggling; Asami felt a blush creep onto her cheeks. Her face must have betrayed her feelings.

“I thought so,” Jinora smugly murmured, a satisfied sort of pride colored her expression.

“So maybe I am falling for Korra.”

“Fell.”

“Falling. That doesn’t...  help me. The company can’t run itself. I don’t have a board of corporate executives, nor do I trust enough people to form one. I… I can’t leave. Not with the city’s repairs on my shoulders.”

“Will you think about it? Think about taking… let’s say a month off, to go to the South Pole and see Korra. Your company’s been rebuilding the city for a year, right? Maybe you can give them a list of easy jobs to be done while you’re gone.”

A list of easy jobs... Maybe that would be alright. Asami’s primary role was finding innovative solutions to rebuilding around the spirit vines themselves, which required a more nuanced understanding of engineering. But there were large portions of Downtown that had suffered damage beyond the vines, as simple as fractures in the pipes costing water and power efficiency. Those could be dealt with without her. But would Future Industries really be okay, operating without a CEO? She’d have to find a temporary replacement.

“Alright. I’ll give it some thought.” she replied. “It… would be nice, not worrying about millions of people’s homes.” She brought both hands by her head, pushing her wavy hair behind her shoulders. “We should join the rest of your family before the food gets cold.”

“Wait! Before we go-”

Surprise raised Asami's eyebrows, pausing her motions. She briefly remembered the tea. Her cup was probably cold. Meanwhile, Jinora's face was flushed hot; her eyes, fingers, and even the small muscles within her cheeks, they all darted and fidgeted, almost imperceptibly shifting around in a constant stream of twitches.

"I liked this. It was really nice. I'm glad you didn't treat me like a little kid. I feel like we could be really great friends. It just felt so natural for me to listen to you, and even that story about Mom and Dad? I wasn't sure that I'd be okay telling it to you, but it was so easy to. It was really great to get that off my chest. If..." Jinora had begun retreating; it actually looked as if her body was shrinking ever so slightly.

"I'll find time for the weekend after next. Maybe I could come over for lunch on Saturday?"

"I'd really like that... if I'm around. Sometimes I help with the villages in the Earth Kingdom."

"We'll just both have to try and make time. Okay?" When Jinora nodded, Asami playfully gave her a nudge. "Besides, you owe me some stories about Kai."

Jinora blushed. "Deal." The two stood up together; Asami carried the tea tray back to the house. The sunset was half dipped in the ocean.

 

 


	3. Falling Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn't planned. I felt so happy with the people reading this story, so my happiness spontaneously generated this as a preface to the next chapter.

“ _How_ do five supply trucks just vanish?” Asami’s lunch sat next to her desk, on an unlocked file cabinet. A sandwich had precisely one bite mark. There was also a glass of water, mostly full, with two small brown cubes by the side. A small bowl of salad looked naked without its oil and lemon condiments, likely in the brown paper bag by its side.

“I don’t have an answer for ya,” grumbled the assistant manager, Pei. “They were nice and parked, by the dump site, then gone, like they sprouted legs and ran off.”

“And who was working around the dump site?”

A roll of paper slid onto the desk. “Here’s everyone that passes through the area, minus your hired muscle.”

A loud knock rang twice; Lee stood in the open doorway of Asami’s office. “Director, if I may be so frank?”

“Please.” Asami pressed her fingers to her temples as the metalbender stepped in.

“The only plausible explanation is that some of your workers have been bribed by the Triads.”

“The workers _and_ the contract guards I’ve hired? There is no way the Triads would spend that much money to risk stealing five trucks with Future Industries’ logo.”

“We may not understand the motive, but the Triads are the only possibility.”

“What about Cabbage Corps? Maybe they’re trying to make me look bad. If Roku Bridge were to be delayed, I’d look like a fool in front of all my investors.”

“Will five missing supply trucks delay the project?”

“...No. They’re easily replaced; I have more machines than I have crew to operate them.” The Cabbage Corps theory no longer made any sense. “Alright, suppose the Triads are bribing everyone, from workers to guards. What can I do about it besides hire more guards?”

“I won’t say that the police are incorruptible, but my fellow officers are certainly more trustworthy than the mercenaries you’ve acquired.”

“I’d love that, but Lin told me her limit was four.”

“That limit can be as much as tripled with an official investigation. You can report a serious theft, after all. There’s a case to be made for theft against an important city official such as the Director of Renovations.”

“I like the sound of that. Pei, I’m taking a rain-check. Walk me through it, Lee. What do I need to do?”

“Excuse me!” Another man bumbled into Asami’s office, clutching a large leather bag in both arms to his chest. “You’ve uhh, been cited for a number of violations - I don’t know by who, I think they were anonymous, and the labor union has grown very concerned, very very concerned, that even a quarter of them are true!”

“I’m in the middle of an appointment.”

“It really can’t wait, they’re on the phone too!”

“DIRECTOR!” A raspy and dry voice managed to urgently shout between gasps of oxygen; it was yet another man, though this one came in an orange vest with neon stripes and dusty jeans. “You gots-ta come to the grounds. Foreman says, the homemade rigs ‘round the vines? Not gon’ hold.”

“Is the bridge literally collapsing right this second?”

“Well, no, but, boss say-”

“I’m in the middle of an appoi-”

“Director?” Marcella knocked on the open door; Asami really had to get that door closed and locked the next time, but then people just kept banging on it in past, and that was a headache to deal with too. “The construction site is asking for their next shipment of supplies.” Asami looked at the assistant manager. Maybe even glared.

“Nuh uh, don’t ya put this on me. I gave supply duties to the foremen and warehouses, ya know, the directly concerned parties.” He held up his hands. “I'm clean. They handle where the supply trucks go and when.”

“ _That's_ the problem. They say that there are no supply trucks.”

Now Asami was definitely glaring. “You said that FIVE were missing.”

“There were, just this morning!”

“How did we go from five to ALL of them missing?” Asami pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Director, if you could, the paperwork won’t take more than twenty minutes, and I can call in extra officers within three hours. We'll keep this mess from ever happening again.”

“What do I tell boss, ‘bout the rigs and vines?”

“The uhh, labor union’s very powerful!”

Marcella didn’t say anything, but Asami could hear her voice anyways. At least in her head. She had been reluctant before to have a real personal assistant, if only because she didn’t trust anyone to make important executive decisions, or to even so much as decide what was and wasn’t an important decision… but this was simply getting out of hand. Her jet-black hair would turn smokescreen-gray by the week’s end.

“Director?” A man’s voice. Lee?

“Uhh, di-director?” The guy in orange and jeans? Or leather bag guy?

Some voices chimed around Asami as she brought her palms to the sides of her head and her eyes down at her legs. This was usually the point where she answered the moving lips that produced sounds, but instead, she felt tired from even looking at the silent, head-tilted-sideways Marcella. Her heavy eyelids brought a sort of half mercy, shielding her from the sights, though not from the persistent white glare, of her office. Before she could let herself be taken in, lulled into this strange trance of half sleep, she remembered the pills in her pocket. When was the last time she’d taken a dose? Breakfast? That reminded her of drinking water, but what she really wanted right now was a long sip of Flameo bourbon… something to warm her down to the core and soften all the pressing issues around her. But she couldn’t do that here, not in the office… that was a one time thing yesterday. Her feet tapped against the low drawer of the desk. No, she had to pull herself back together. She needed help, a friend, and lacking that, space.

“Everyone out,” she said.

“But,” came the collective cry of everyone around her.

“Everyone out, right now, and come back later.” Her eyes shot open; she leaned back in her swivel chair and folded her arms. “Lee, I will see you in forty.” Turned the chair. “Pei, I will see you in an hour.” And again. “The labor union can stuff it for now. I’ll see them when they have witness testimonials.” Again. “You…”

“Jing.” He put his hands into his jean pockets.

“Tell your foreman to make an appointment with me. And Marcella… send out the trucks from the factory. We’re not using them. Assign two guards to each. Now,” she said sternly, her resolve manifesting into a single raised arm and a pointed finger. “Out.”

They obliged, giving their polite bowing-head-gestures before departing. Marcella was kind enough to close the door when everyone had left.

Asami yanked open the bottom drawer. Inside was a box, and inside that was a gray metal flask, which was quickly withdrawn and placed on the desk alongside the list of names and descriptions that Pei had passed her earlier. She put that away and replaced it with a blank sheet of paper and a pen, as well as her sandwich. Her second bite was a delicious mixture of soft bread, melted cow-goat’s cheese, smoked pork-sheep shoulder, and silence. Oh, the savory, tangy, golden taste of silence. She took another bite, humming to herself as her stomach rumbled, almost absent mindedly (that’s what she told herself) reaching for the flask, popping the top off, and bringing the cool metal to her mouth. The fiery liquid touched her lips; she allowed herself that much, then gently sucked on her lower lip, collecting the notes of vanilla, apple, and cinnamon with her tongue… her heart fluttered in delight. Her eyes closed again as pleasure-vibes, as she called them, ran up the length of her back, touched the edges of her neck, and kissed the tips of her fingers and toes. She took a real sip this time, though a small one, hardly savoring the burning flavor with her eager gulp. The vibes didn’t come back… it was more like an echo.

There was a tinge of guilt, and a very loud banging sound outside, though not on her door. She hastily put the cap back on and returned the miracle container into the box. She needed something else to do, something to recenter herself in the precious minutes before the rest of the day’s work. And when her eyes looked over the familiar sight of a blank piece of paper with but a pen on top, she knew.

 

_Korra,_

_I thought I’d keep you up to date on what’s going on in Republic City, at least from my end. You might not have even gotten my last letter before I mail this one, but I just felt inspired. So here goes._

_Jinora and I had a good heart to heart talk last week. Actually, I had one with Pema too the day before. I knew they were a sweet family, but it’d just been such a long time since I lived with them… I guess I started forgetting how big their hearts were._

_Unfortunately, my work here in the city isn’t going nearly as well. Remember Roku Bridge? Well, I’ve finally gotten around to rebuilding it. The Spirit Wilds are now home to the Triads, and the police think they’re the ones who have been stealing my equipment: mostly vehicles. I’d be lying if I said that the costs were negligible. On top of that, I messed up the design for the bridge. It was flawless in theory, of course, but we got halfway through setting the underwater pillars only to realize that we just can’t quite do it. The metalbenders can’t shape the metal that far down and still be accurate, even in a submarine; something about the water getting in the way. The whole situation actually gave me a new idea for mechasuits; what if I made them for construction? They could carry more supplies than a person and reach places that would normally take tons of safety measures. I don’t really have time to entertain that idea though, so I’ll have to shelf it. Anyways, I’ve redesigned the bridge, and we’re almost finished with the foundation; if it works, I’ll manage to do it on time (though apparently one of my foremen thinks that the new design is already flawed). It’ll be the biggest project I’ve taken on in the past year, so if I pull this off, investors should be begging me for shares! Think how wonderful that’ll be; I’ll be able to contract smaller businesses and split the workload so that I don’t have to micromanage every little detail. Republic City is on its way to a Sato-approved state of repair… I hope. Also, I’ve learned today that I need a personal assistant. You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve just had in my office. Varrick could make a comedy mover based on this morning. It was that bad._

_I’m not sure how much news you get about the Earth Kingdom… or if you get any news at all, so here’s what I’ve heard. Because the monarchy lost all of its power (you’ll be happy to hear that no one knows what became of the Dai Li), a woman called the Great Uniter stepped in to bring the Earth Kingdom back together. Outside of Ba Sing Se’s walls, the biggest consequence of the queen’s death was the rise of ~~Triads~~ criminals and independent states, claiming that Ba Sing Se had no right to rule them any longer. The Great Uniter now marches across the Earth Kingdom, with her army, to put down rebellions and outlaws… I hear both good and bad things. On one hand, it’s absolute chaos, and she’s bringing order in. On the other hand… she doesn’t give them much of a choice. If the Earth Kingdom wasn’t in such bad shape right now, I’d call her the Great Conqueror. ~~The world leaders are~~ I don’t know what the world leaders were thinking, giving her command of an entire kingdom’s military, but she’s one of the most powerful people in the world right now. Maybe that’s exactly what we need though. I hope that the Earth Kingdom will re-stabilize into a stronger, more peaceful kingdom than it ever was before. _

_Also, I’ve been giving some thought to coming down to visit you. Would that be okay?  I don't mind the cold. There’s a lot of easy jobs that my company will do without me, so it’d be a perfect time to see you again. Let me know, okay? We can really make this happen (I'd love to see Naga too). ~~Before you ask why I never suggested this sooner, it’s because I never sat down to talk with Jinora before just recently. She came up with the whole idea~~_

_Take care,  
Asami Sato _

_~~P.S. You're a strong, beautiful woman. I know you'll make it through this.  
~~_ _P.S. You're a strong_

Two quick knocks on the door snapped Asami's head up. Her sandwich was half eaten. A metal flask sat on her desk, which quickly vanished into the secretive depths of the desk. "Just a moment Kor-, LEE!" she called out. 

_P.S. ~~You're a strong~~ Tell Naga I miss her!_

 

 


	4. Fallen Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was taking me too long to edit, so I've split it up.
> 
> Fallen Fire, Part 1

An architect nervously drummed his fingers against a clipboard. An orange vested builder crossed her fingers. A bead of sweat ran down Asami’s forehead as the entire crew of Roku Bridge held their breath. Asami blew a whistle, and four industrial-grade ships detached from the barren steel framework of the bridge, reeling back their metal wires… the whirring of gears stopped, and then the ships drifted away, no longer attached to the newly born construction. Its beams creaked. The suspension cables above shivered, groaned, then hummed. Gradually, it all slowed, then stilled.

 _Waiting_ … the underwater pillars held sturdy.

 _Fidgeting_ … The cables didn’t snap. And the spirit vines that sat beneath the bridge didn’t suddenly grow or shift.

“Did we do it,” a middle aged man whispered, taking off his glasses. “Have we really done a month’s job in ten days?”

“If I’d gotten the design right on the first try, this would have been eight days,” Asami huffed. “But yes. The bridge skeleton has the Sato seal of completion.”

The man turned to the crowd of anxious workers, cupping his hands around his mouth as his voice boomed. “Did you hear her? We did it!” Bellowing whoops and thundering claps of several dozen men and women pierced the air. A couple hands patted Asami on the back as she grinned, the bags under her eyes wrinkling as she tried to blink away her exhaustion (maybe a few milliseconds of shut eye counted as micro naps). It was a bit early to celebrate after all, but it wouldn’t hurt to let the crew kick up their heels for a bit. The rest of the construction would be a cake walk. Three days, five tops. Besides, the celebration infectiously filled her soul with bubbles and laughter and… were the foremen gathered around a bottle of sparkling plum wine? At four in the afternoon?

“Ahem.” A nearby Pei straightened his tie and strode over to the bottle opening ceremony as a cork went flying.

“Let them, Pei. It’s one bottle.”

“...ya don’t sound too swell, director.”

“I’ll be fine," she said. "The rest of Roku will be simple. I can finally relax a little, if the police will stop hassling me.” Lee never said how much follow up she’d have to go through to settle disputes between the police and Raiko: providing testimonials, proof of theft, plausible deniability, reasons why Raiko shouldn’t unleash private investigators at Future Industries' workers...

“Ya know, I could take the reins. See that the rest gets built right side up, tested for weight… don’t take a rocket scientist like you to oversee that.” When discomfort contorted Asami’s mouth into a disapproving shape, Pei sputtered out an addendum. “For a day!” Eyebrows still creased. “Okay, sixteen hours! Aww c’mon, what’s the matter with ya? I’m trustworthy! I’m competent! It’s like ya don’t want to take a reasonable break. Wouldn’t that be comfy, a full night’s sleep?”

“...You know what, you’re right Pei.” She did deserve a night in her own bed, instead of an elbow-pillow nap in the office of Future Industries. “But call the mansion,” she emphasized, “if something, _anything_ , comes up. Okay?”

“Not a chance,” Pei winked. “Catch some shut eye. Ya definitely deserve it.”

Asami parked by the Estate mailbox. The orange glow of sunset was shrinking away from the shadowy edges of the tall oaks and small hills that surrounded the Sato property. Climbing up one such hill (older than a childhood memory), she looked over the pristine shimmering bay, contrasted with the streetlights and apartment windows of Downtown flickering to life one by one: a thousand multicolored fireflies in the urban jungle.

She had grabbed a stack of mail in both arms before her climb and was now leafing through them, sitting against a huge, rough tree. Her eyes lingered over the return address of each envelope before placing it aside, unless it was marked “urgent.” Even then, she merely glossed through their contents before tucking them away. Frequent yawns and blurry eyes prevented any serious reading. _After I’ve slept a little_ , she thought. Asami took another look at the primary reason for her exhaustion: the bridge.

It was architecture incarnate. The cold, naked steel sat like gray or silver bones, sleek and sturdy, fused by screws and welding torches. It shimmered and glistened from the glow of the heavenly body descending beneath the waters, as it would with the stars and moon later tonight, and tomorrow, and for many years, unmoved the bayside breeze.

The wind rustled the papers; the black haired woman let out a deep exhale as she picked up the final few. _Kyoshi District_. Tossed. _Missing Equipment Notice_. Tossed. _Republic City Pris_ \- She froze. Blinked. Blinked again. It was definitely from the prison, and there was only one man who’d write her from behind bars. Her joints became unyielding stones, yet her fingers twitched to open it. Maybe he’d say he was sorry.

_“...no chance to save you!”_

Scratch that. Her chest heaved. Each ragged breath only fed more heat and mass to the gravity in her core, pulling all her sinews into a trembling frenzy, until the most hateful words rippled across her flesh and reshaped them into… but a light headed, dizzying spell took hold of her first, saved her mind from metamorphosis. With her lucidity regained, her wrist snapped with a flick, frisbeeing the brown envelope down the side of the hill. She suddenly felt a different exhaustion (was it like a gym workout or a long night’s drinking), and tried to quickly flee from it by moving onto what turned out to be the last of her mail. It was a larger envelope, and from its thickness, had several documents inside. Unwinding the string from the two buttons that closed it, she hurriedly emptied out the contents: several photographs and a note.

The first was of Pei, dressed in a suit and halfway through a door; behind him there was a coat-stand and many, many shoes. The next was of Marcella by the road, lifting a child onto her shoulders, with a modest but charming brick home behind them. Asami’s hands flipped faster and faster through the photographs. She didn’t know all the names, but she recognized their faces; they were forty of her employees, in front of what was presumably their homes, sometimes with their families. Even Lee was there, laying face down on the sidewalk? The final picture was a shot of a window; squinting, Asami could make out an elaborate bed and a bedstand, maybe a dresser in the far corner… she scowled when she recognized the pile of clothes, right at the foot of her bed where she left them. With a deep breath, she placed the photos back in and read the accompanying slip of paper.

_The Spirit Wilds. Saturday, just before midnight. Come alone._

Countermeasures: could Lin protect forty of her employees? No, not without utilizing the police force, which probably had an informant or tapped phone lines. Could the police back her up at the rendezvous? Unlikely, since the Triads knew the Spirit Wilds better than anyone, and that still ran the hazard of an informant. Who sent this threat, and how prepared were they? One hitman, or one bomb, could take out a family. With the sky’s orange hue faded into purple and shadows, there simply wasn’t enough time to plan or enact a foolproof response. Gathering all the papers around, including the letter from prison, she set off down the hill.

Before long, she was by her father’s old desk and phone; cabinets loomed and shelves towered, as the last bit of sunlight touched the red carpet, then died. Asami picked up the phone and firmly pressed a series of buttons which resounded in confirmed clicks and a tone ringing.

“Pick up, pick up…”

“Hello?” It was Tenzin.

“It’s Asami. I need help. How many of the Air Nomads are there?”

“The kids, and two others, but they’re exhausted. What’s going on?”

“I need to make sure that… twenty seven of my employees are safe tonight, without notifying the police.” Asami switched on the white desk lamp, reading aloud the names and addresses of the names that she knew; the other thirteen, the ones who only had familiar faces, she’d just have to hope. The threat made no demands except to meet, so Asami’s gut told her that everyone should be safe for now (except herself). Still better safe than sorry.

“Alright, I’ve got your list. Now will you please tell me what’s happening? Is someone threatening you?”

“I’m going to take care of that.” It was a fact.

“Let someone help you! I’ll call Lin, or maybe even I could co-”

“I was told to go alone. I might avoid a fight that way entirely. Plus, if anyone comes with me and gets caught, forty people and their familie-”

“FORTY? B-”

“I didn’t know the names of thirteen photographs, but they definitely work for my company. Look, there’s no time to call Lin and have her ID them either. I want you to focus on keeping as many of my people safe, and I’ll take care of myself. This…” Dejavu. “This is the only way.” No, it wasn’t dejavu… Korra was ready to sacrifice herself for others. Asami had no intention of being taken.

When Tenzin said nothing, Asami could practically hear his protests. 'It’s too dangerous,' or 'I can’t let you.' But there was just silence. Then a groan.

“I’m coming to the Estate. The Air Nomads and I can ask around using those photos, see if the locals can tell us who those people are.”

How could she miss such an obviously good idea. “That’s perfect. I’ll be here.” Asami took her ear off the receiver and placed it down with a click.

In theory, she had a little time to rest her dizzy head. As if on cue, her right eyelid spasmed shut, the muscles jerking and twitching before relinquishing control back to her brain proper. She could just imagine if her eyes decided to throw their sleep deprived tantrum in the middle of a fist fight… she’d never see an uppercut punch coming. Her stomach complained more persistently than her eyes did, as if seasick from a ship in rough waters, and laying her head down was the only land in sight, a land cushioned by the pillow of two bent arms on top of her desk…

No. No, she didn’t have time for this. She snapped up and kicked the chair out from underneath her. Adrenaline would have to carry her forward, adrenaline and… she reached into her pocket and withdrew a small, white pill container, labeled 'Quick Fix.' With a swift shake, she listened for the rattling of its contents, then unscrewed the top and dropped two… four brown cubes into the palm of her gloved hand. She placed one on her tongue for now, pocketing the other three.

And then the doorbell rang. Asami hurried down to see the airbender holding a radio in each hand. “What if we used these,” he said, “and I waited on the outskirts of your meeting place? That way, when you called for help, I’d be there right away!”

“I can’t risk it,” she sighed. “The fact that you took Oogi to get here ruins the plan. Now they might know to watch out for an airbending master.” Asami couldn’t stifle a smile as Oogi groaned. Or whined?

“Well… take it anyways. Just in case it helps.” He handed her one, and she graciously bowed her hand and clipped it to her belt, giving the photographs in return. “Call me or Lin in the morning, alright?”

“I’m definitely calling you. I don’t want to lose my hearing to Lin shouting.” That got a chuckle out of Tenzin.

“I know you’ll take care of yourself.” He offered a smile: the warm and bittersweet smile of a father. It made the air around him that much lighter for just a moment, and Asami could do nothing but smile in return, wordless, though not breathless, as she watched the airbender leap up fifteen or so feet, landing on the already lifted sky bison. With a gust, they were gone.

In the dining room, Asami made a vegetable stir fry with a bowl of fresh white rice, a raw egg, dried seaweed, and mint leaves. She drank a few glasses of water and even brewed a small pot of oolong tea. By the fireplace, she flipped through a fashion magazine. All the while, her breathing remained steady and strong, like the heart that thrashed against her ribs. Her consciousness had long ebbed away from the task of keeping her body upright… yet an energy inside of her fought the pull into exhaustion. Part of it was probably the Quick Fix holding her eyelids open, but kafei beans and ginseng roots didn’t explain this tension spooling through her spirit.

The past year had been nothing like her days of battle alongside Korra. Her hands gripped wrenches, not forearms; her legs climbed ladders and steps instead of roundhousing or leaping. The biggest difference was that she never wore the electric glove in that time, and hadn’t heard the sound of five hundred thousand volts discharging from her right hand. Never felt someone go limp from her electrifying grip. She closed her eyes… focusing on the crackles of the fireplace, which slowly transformed into the sputtering exhaust pipe of an incoming motorcycle. In her mind’s eye, she positioned herself just to the side, then leaped with one leg extended outward, feeling her shin collide with the cyclist’s padded chest. Knocking him flat on the ground, she would dodge the rock projectile from his ally, then trip a mace-wielder before applying a quick electric shock to the spinal cord… she took them down - not sparring partners or punching bags, but warriors - one after another.

And the bottle of bourbon sat untouched that night.


	5. Fallen Fire (Pt. 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of 2  
> Fallen Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence, anxiety attack
> 
> Rewrote the fighting sequence for a little smoothness.

The midnight hour came, bleak and dark. Asami had parked her wheels by an abandoned warehouse near the Boroughs, and was now walking towards the crooked trees and the floating, glowing spirits. They eyed her as she approached, as foreign to the black haired woman as the distant stars and the towering construction crane were to one another. She stared into the strangeness, the tangled scientific abnormality, and felt it glare back at her as she fastened the electric glove onto her right hand.

Her fingers flexed inside the leather, testing the feel and weight of the deadly metal gauntlet... it felt a bit heavy, but she'd make do. With a final breath of the city's cold night, she stepped into the Spirit Wilds.

The star and moonlight didn't pierce through the upper foliage, yet a hushed tone of silver illuminated the Wilds, as if the air in this place glowed with invisible gray fireflies. Little spirit eyes poked out from inside trees, or from behind gargantuan vines, and the end of an uprooted tendril suddenly withdrew into the ground like a rabbit-badger into its hole. It was mystifying. It was surely illogical. It was... beautiful. How had Asami never once thought to visit? Smaller, leafier tendrils snaked up and along brick walls with sheets of moss. Enormous vines squeezed into alleyways, obscured by huge bushes. Aside from the roads, it looked nearly impossible to move freely in the Wilds. Which buildings could be entered? How difficult was it to budge a spirit vine? Are the bushes poisonous? There were too many questions for a newcomer to answer, so Asami found herself on the road, deeper into the alien vegetation, shadowed by quiet gray and haunted by the black of night.

 _I could be walking into an ambush_. Would her assailants show themselves all at once, or bait out her confidence with a lone attacker? Worse yet would be a hostage situation, but if they hadn't asked her for money, they had to want intel... With a slow and deep breath, she brought her mind to the present and realized exactly how alone she was. Where had the shy eyes poking from behind dark corners gone?

“Quite the scary accessory you've brought, little miss.” A woman strode out from behind a curtain of vines, her amber eyes locking on Asami's, her walk forwards a slow and careful arc. From the moment she revealed herself, she kept her knees slightly bent and her front slightly angled away. Her white tailcoat swayed as she prowled in those absurd platform boots. “A little tasteless in color though, if you asked me.”

Some _nerve_ this woman had, calling Asami 'little miss.' If it weren't for the platforms, she'd stand a good couple of inches shorter than Asami. “What do you want?” She glanced to her side, slowly rotating her torso in line with the moving brunette. She scanned her belt for water pouches, looked at the unrolled cuffs of her jacket and highly flammable silk gloves... and her clothes were immaculate, without so much as a scruff of dirt. In her memory, Triads had worn the color that best represented their element, but there was not a single clue to be had between her full white attire and a black leather belt. Guess she couldn't expect it to be so easy at a negotiation.

“Ever the businesswoman. Hmph. Your company's in Triad territory.” Her eyes hardened. “My territory. I want you gone,” she growled.

“I need the Boroughs. In three days, my company's moving out of your hair, and we can go separate ways.”

“No, you see, your little project has brought the attention of the Beifong dogs, who've used this chance to sniff us out.”

“Between stealing my trucks and bribing my guards... this isn't about the police. You're just trying to get to me by threatening my employees.” The pieces had sewn themselves together. The stolen equipment, the over-the-top bribery, they were all just flexed muscles, to show her that the Triads had power. Of course, then they'd draw a frightened, innocent, _little Miss fucking Sato_ into the dark and force her to step down as CEO, or hand over her company shares. “You can find someone else to scam. I'm not giving you anything. Not one yuan.”

“Oh.” The woman stopped circling, folding her arms across her chest. “Ha.” She began chuckling. Laughing. Bending over slightly as she trembled, the whole Wilds echoing with her guffaws. Asami contemplated running at her right then. “Sweetheart, no. Yuans are so yesterday's problem. I don't fancy your goods, Ms. Sato, unless we happen to be...” Her eyes dropped down briefly as she gently bit her lower lip. “Mmm... Just extract yourself from the Boroughs tomorrow, and we'll play nice. Easy as pie. Sweetie.”

A flash of anger trembled beneath Asami's brows. Was she really not interested in money? Then what? Business training kicked in. She'd hold her chin high, make the criminal reveal her motives without appearing vulnerable or desperate... but she felt sick of that game. Negotiations were strategic, uncertain, elusive: a list of traits that did not describe the power worn on her right hand. With a sentence, she destroyed what bargaining chips she held, and doubled down. “You know that the police won't stop now, right? You've stolen from me, a city official with top priority work. That doesn't matter though, because I won't leave.”

“Oh?” She purred the word. She fucking purred. “Do your forty employees feel the same way?” Her slender fingers dipped into a coat pocket, withdrawing a thin detonator.

Asami didn't mean this; she really didn't mean this: “blow them up. Do it.” A long fingernail tapped on the red button. “I said, kill them.”

“In the colonies before the city, they said jade was the luckiest stone.”

“You're stalling.”

“I'm flirting, there's a difference hon. It was a little saying to tell the men how exotic and treasured an Earth Kingdom woman was. I'm starting to see it now.”

“You've been bluffing. You have nothing on me. I'm done here,” Asami growled.

“How exotic you are indeed,” she whispered. But then those amber irises came alive, and the deep seated orange jewels danced in the silver shade of the Wilds. “I just want you to remember, I offered to work this out simply. I may have even asked you to join me.” A fighter's reflex slipped two of Asami's free fingers on to the inside of the electric glove, disengaging a switch as the palm pulsed with blue sparks and sharp crackles, but not before the woman pressed the button.

There was a brief moment of... being ruined. Asami played a Fool's Gambit, with real human lives, and lost. But that all vanished as she heard the explosions; her ears ringed with rapid succession of detonating bombs. Thick, nightmarish clouds billowed forth from a high-rise roof, cloaking the construction crane seated there. Fire and smoke alike reached up. Brick walls were ripped apart. Stories upon stories of windows, smashed. Tiled floors and concrete sidewalks, shattered.

What was once an abandoned apartment complex, appropriated for mounting a fifty seven ton pulley-system, was now the epicenter of a shockwave. Booms, pops, and cracks were followed by a two heartbeat pause: the building's center gave; the top floors crushed their brothers beneath; a titan of steel dropped, trampling crimson flames, suffocating fumes, chunks of earth, until it reached the bottom. The impact – no more than a hundred feet away – shook the world. Leaves fell. Branches snapped. Spirits of all shapes and colors flew forth from hidden nooks and crevices.

“What are you DOING,” Asami roared, eyes shot wide. Worse followed. The sound of steel colliding, of concrete blocks crashing into the water, of suspension wires quivering and of metal beams groaning. The bridge sung a symphony that she had never wanted to hear.

“I hope Republic City is ready to swing,” she grinned. “I especially hope you're ready, little miss. But maybe something more sensual for us. Blues?”

“You won't get away with this.” The black haired woman's voice curdled, deepened by a rush of chemicals that shot from her core to her brain. Every muscle screamed. Every vein bursted. Her eyes went into overdrive, noting the curtain of vines behind the woman, the thicker trees to the right, the blocked alleys, the nearby wall to the left...

“I already have, and so much more hon.”

“The police will scour every inch now. Strip this place down to the bare bones.” A street lamp had fallen between herself and this amber eyed devil. It was inconvenient to jump or step over because of how it bent, but if Asami was fast enough...

“Sweetheart,” she sighed, twirling a few strands of her walnut hair, “they say you're a genius, but-”

“They'll find all your hiding places, and arrest all you Triads. But not you, or your broken body.” The rainbow of tones, from rage-red to flustered-indigo, abandoned her voice as she gave her verdict. “I'll make sure of it.”

She dashed, circling around the woman before charging straight at her, trapping the amateur between five hundred thousand volts, a brick wall, a fallen street light, and a veil of spirit vines. The choice was obvious, really: tumble over the street light or take cover behind the veils. Asami would play a fifty-fifty bet here, as she pressed her heel into the road, preparing to dodge and turn for the street light... until the woman flew in the air. Soared fifteen feet upwards, propelled by a gust, gracefully flipping on top of a tree. She waved her fingers from above as her white tailcoat rode the stirs of the fading breeze. The detonator had been replaced by a radio.

“Head of Future Industries sighted on B7. Take her dead or alive.” The brunette then clipped the device to her belt. “And for you,” she pointed, “a gift.” She touched her fingertips to her lips, pressed a wet and full smooch onto them, and blew a gust.

Asami would have sold Future Industries on the spot if a god could have granted her electric glove some degree of range. She took off sprinting instead, just as the woman shaped her hand into a likeness of a phone pressed to her ear. Who _was_ she? Her disgusting flirtation aside, the command she had issued, the hunter's prowl when they first met, the confident air that she rode on, it was like a leader's. Asami would know.

She vaulted over an angled root, catching sight of two men and one woman rolling out from an alleyway to her right; they were dressed in color coded attire of red, blue, and green. Tacky as usual. The man in red snapped his leg out in a kick; Asami jumped into the air in anticipation of a fiery assault… which never came, because the man in red had instead launched block of concrete? Unable to evade the hard, jagged projectile, Asami swung her gauntlet forward in a desperate defense, the impact forcing her to the ground.

The woman in blue gave her no space, hurling her curved arm into a low, scything flame wave towards Asami, who rolled under the attack. Just as she began to regain her footing, she caught a glimpse of the red earthbender anchoring his weight down and throwing his arms out wide.

Asami sprang up and jumped, tucking her knees into her chest as the ground beneath formed a small dome. Before she could land, the waterbender unleashed the full contents of two reservoir pouches, launching a torrent of water at her. As the water was hitting her, Asami pressed her boots against the dome and leaped backwards, using the force of the blast and her own jump to land safely on the ground, narrowly avoiding a collision with a hard, brick wall just inches behind her. When had Triads become so coordinated? _Shit, the wall._

Asami threw herself as far from the bricks as possible, landing next to the dome just as the earthbender yanked out a section from the wall, collapsing it where Asami had just been. She regained her footing before the firebender quickly jabbed his fist forward; Asami side stepped the fireball, then ducked underneath an ice shard. The firebender jabbed again; this time, Asami weaved to her right, then darted in the other direction as the waterbender hurled a spray of icicles. Before the other woman could sweep her arm outward, Asami charged, closing in twenty feet, fifteen, ten…

An earth spike shot upwards in front of Asami, halting her advance. Moving to the left, another earth spike nearly gutted her, and the same to the right. She faked a jump, then instead rolled underneath the fire and waterbender’s combined projectiles, but the earthbender stomped his foot into the ground, creating yet another spike that threatened to skewer her if she moved forward.

Asami focused on weaving between the blasts of fire and daggers of ice. The red earthbender was entirely on the defensive, furiously stomping the ground to create the barricade that deterred the black haired woman from approaching… but Asami was inching towards then, refusing to retreat as she forced the trio further towards a wall.

Then, after a final blast of water, the waterbender’s supply ran dry. Unable to continue attacking, the man in green ran down the road, towards puddles scattered around there… in those few seconds, Asami zig zagged towards the remaining duo. The red earthbender kept up, stomping the ground faster and faster as more and more spikes protruded through the road, each more carelessly and thinly produced than the last… on a daredevil’s high, Asami rushed towards the man, pressing her gauntlet to the ground in time to intercept a pillar of asphalt. She cartwheeled over it, throwing her weight at a sharp angle towards the woman instead of going straight for the earthbender (who had thrown his arms in the air, raising a wall in front of him). Asami could hear the firebender gasp as she landed within lunging distance.

That hesitation and fear would be enough.

While three chunks of the road found wings, Asami rushed into a forward somersault, evading the earthbender as he hurled two blocks over her. She dove straight for her mark, just as the firebender brought two small flames to life in her outstretched palms. Asami shoved her gauntlet sideways into both of the fires, hissing as the heat seared her hand through the metal and leather… she quickly grabbed the exposed woman’s wrist with her left hand, delivered a quick kick to the ankles to interrupt the bending, and shoulder slammed into her windpipe.

She took two steps forward, following the momentum of the stumbling, choking body on her shoulder, and briefly closed her eyes (no more than a hesitant blink to some). A single pulse of adrenaline coursed through her center, alerting her to the sound of a block of earth dropping, a set of footsteps to her right, and the rushing of water down the road.

When her eyes opened, Asami shoved the gauntlet into the writhing body’s torso, electrifying it; there was no scream, just a curdled, bloody gasp as Asami slammed her heel into the stomach, launching the shocked body towards the waterbender’s forming octopus-stance; he flinched as it hit his tentacles, dropping his stance all together with a splash.

Then Asami blocked the side of her head with the gauntlet, shattering a disc of earth aimed at her skull; a sharp shard from the projectile sliced her cheek. She dodged the next flying disc, then charged the waterbender, who was pulling the trickles of water lying around into streams that encircled him.

He sank his weight into his back leg, fluidly rolling his arms in a wide and steady circle as the water began to rise around him; however, Asami was already within three steps of striking range. Her assault would have been fast enough, but just as she reached her weapon forward, a huge wall of earth rose up from the ground inches from her nose.

It became a launching board for her; her arms pushed off from it, reversing her body’s momentum towards the earthbender, who dug his heels into the ground, preparing to raise another wall. Asami raced him, and just as he threw his arms wide, she pounced into the air, reaching both her hands out… she caught the top of the newly formed wall as it shot up, giving her the lift required to flip over it. Her legs swung up and over, then her heels slammed into the back of his shoulders.

Bones cracked. He screamed as he fell forward and flat, arms spasming, then locking up as Asami pressed the electric glove to his back. When his brief cries died out, she quickly grabbed -

“LI-REN!” The last man standing cried out... somewhere in the back of her mind, she could hear the anguish.

\- opposite sides of his head, the metal against the back and the unarmed holding the chin. The gauntlet felt so heavy against him... she could lean her weight down and snap his chin up. Skeletons were so fragile after all.

Her own bones responded with a single shiver: a hesitation, a mirrored memory of sorts. She saw herself towering over the defenseless body, about to fulfill the purpose of her weapon's design. Then she was standing, running, leather boots pounding against leafy asphalt, past trembling squirrel-rabbit spirits. She almost ran into a yellow kite with eyes that wasn't fleeing as fast as she (but even her legs couldn't outrace her heart now). She brushed past it all; the dangling vines, the walking tree... until she embraced the darkness of civilization (the smell of gas, the cold streets, the empty warehouses), leaving behind the silver, strange shade of the Spirit Wilds.

_I can't be._

Her heart burned bright by both fuses.

_I was going to sacrifice my employees._

Her blood felt saturated with burning filth. She knew the science but couldn't stop the pain.

_I'm not my father._

Anxiety attacks were best described 'as if you're going to die.' Asami would have given anything to feel that way instead of what she felt right now. She crossed a line, over a cliff, and no amount of fantasy could keep her above the chasm for long.

She wasn't her father. She wasn't her father.

 


	6. Pulse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Anxiety (riding out the wave from the last chapter. Skip after the first horizontal line if you'd like)
> 
> The way this chapter turned out was totally an accident.

In the outskirts of Dragon Flat Boroughs, a Satocycle sat propped up  against an unpainted shed; the vehicle owner was crouched against the splintered planks, her knees pulled into her heaving chest.

Asami tried to <th-thump>, tried to calm the pounding beats inside her chest, at first limiting her thoughts to <th-thump> senses alone. She focused on the solid cold barrier against her back, and the shivers, the shivers creeping through her limbs <th-thump>, and her trembling lungs pulling and pushing fractured gasps past her burning windpipe, fractured gasps like how she probably fractured that earthbender's shoulders... she needed to be <th-thump> calm  _and if I can focus enough to just breathe, oh spirits I can still feel how rigid that firebender's body went when I shocked her through the heart._ Her own organ thrashed and wailed against her ribs; she saw her vision tunneling into <th-thump>; she was barely capable of  _keeping my own damn <th-thump> straight -_

She had to get away. She had to run. The alternative was to die. Surely the human could only survive so much adrenaline; her lungs would explode with too much oxygen... surely, she would go crazy if there was nothing to run from at all, and she had to simply endure this.

Scrambling onto her wheels, Asami jammed the keys into the ignition, and the engine groaned. Her foot slammed the pedal down as far as it would go.

* * *

By foot, she wandered (her heart too weary to remember how she'd gotten Downtown), drawn down a street of people. Drunken men were draped across each other, laughing as they set beer bottles on the hood of their cards. Ragged women smoked in circles, entangled by the haze of burnt tobacco and quiet chuckles. All were darkened by the shadows of concrete giants.

Her cold naked hands, sore from the steel grip of crushing her anxiety into handlebars (where had she parked?), twitched from a sort of nervous ache to hold something, anything, to replace the phantom weigh of circuits and plates, of the electric glove: the invention from her terrible excuse for a father.

The glove was a symbol: of Hiroshi's genius manifested in hatred, his wish to kill benders, and worst of all Asami's own part in delivering his vengeance. That knowledge had cut open her heart and bled her dry, leaving her insides arid as a desert.

So naturally, she searched for a bar, which would provide a glass for her hands to hold as she drowned herself in the ocean within. She craved cleanliness, and so, she wandered, maybe-always lost.

Why was a bar so difficult to find, anyways? She had passed a few chained up liquor stores, following a line of cars parked by the curb, but there'd been no bar. So where were all the buzzed and tipsy people coming from? None of it made sense, until she heard music from around the corner.

Earthy, long drawls of a deep brass tone wafted to the intersection, lulling Asami to follow a line of vehicles around the bend. There she found a more sophisticated crowd: sippers of amber liquid, contemplators of dimly lit cigars... all standing vigil over the rich notes of jazz music. Asami quickly made her way past, not caring for the throat searing fumes that huffed from the sighs of those who stood like lamp posts; each followed her with their eyes - she thought it an unnerving yet strangely intimate act from a crowd so stoic.

She soon found the center of this gathering. From underneath the fluorescent light of cyan letters, music drifted out the open door of a club. Perhaps it was a lounge, though none like she'd ever been to before. Still, her dry throat and trembling hands knew there was a bartender inside, and so she followed, reading the sign overhead as she passed through the door: Pulse.

It briefly occurred to her that she might have been walking too quickly for how slowly that brassy tone moved, almost shy and reserved in its climb.

Immediately, a sleek, mahogany bar drew her weary feet in, a middle aged woman in a black button-up gesturing over the available stools. Asami sat where she'd neither be too crowded nor completely alone (the place had quite a few people actually). Through glowing orange lamp shades and soft neon hums, her eyes took in whatever her imagination fancied, like the cocktail glass on the backs shelf, which she'd sip on  _slowly_  after ordering its contents.

"Just a standard mixed drink," Asami said along the falling pitch of a saxophone. "With twice the bourbon though." The woman across the counter nodded, almost to Asami's surprise; she was unexpectedly relieved not to hear any flattering cries of, "of course Ms. Sato."  _Maybe it doesn't matter,_ she thought to the gentle rustles of a tambourine.

The very low hum of background conversation kept the atmosphere alive. Patrons seated at tables, in pairs most frequently, leaned in to murmur soulful secrets to one another. Couples, who danced in the small space in front of the live band's stage, whispered in each other's ears, lips barely illuminated by the muted dark blue light behind the musicians. At the bar, opposite to the stage, rustic oil lamps gave a dusk-like curtain to the slightly louder chatter of drinkers, who spoke with one another as if the saxophone was just musical accompaniment to their subdued evening, as if the piano did not require utmost concentration to appreciate.

But the band, and their music, weren't just playing idle notes and whimsical tones. Just now, the brass sighed, and the tambourine gave a brilliant jingle, encouraging a bright and high squeak from the sax, to which the tambourine nodded with a single shiver. Or maybe the drink in Asami's hand had given her all these ideas.

No, she wasn't imagining it; the piano now, with a bell-like voice, just spoke very softly, as if moved by the saxophone's story of climbs and falls, responding to its ups and downs with the gasps of three notes, now five notes to a phrase.

Others, too, reacted as the piano did; the two dozen or so dancing couples swayed and spun to the steps of the shuffling tambourine. At other times, they drifted apart from one another to the rich drawl of the sax before rushing together again at the beckoning of a single fading chord.

The music filled an emptiness in Asami's heart, but at the same time made her ache. It was as if the chords dug into her chest and fished out the blackness from her spirit, at once satisfying and creating a pain she knew but had not yet entirely felt.

Just an hour ago, she had sped around Republic City under her Satocycle ran out of fuel, and she, too, was out. Maybe that's why the second cocktail went as quickly as the first. She felt drunk on just the act of drinking; she drowned her mind, shaping them to the tides of smooth vanilla bourbon. A few troubled thoughts resurfaced in a few brief flutters ( _what am I doing)_ before Asami took another gulp.

She noted that the stage belonged to the saxophone; it was loudest, most powerful, most moving. She drank ( _is this really me)_ , and she drank again (as the piano rang out in tritone, walking halfway down a scale, then dying), and she took one more sip just as the sax began to mourn, filling all empty places with the knowledge of solitude.

* * *

 

"I killed someone! Doesshn't that make me evil by nature? Even my dad's a killer; it's in me, it's just in my blood, and I can't get it out."

"I don't believe morality is the nature of people," replied the bartender. "There's good and bad in us both."

"Hah! Then explain the Avatar," Asami sloshed. The bartender dabbed a bit of the spilled drink that had just fallen with a towel. "Korra's PURPOSE is to bring balance! She's good, she's so so good."

"Balance. That means moderation. Doesn't that mean the Avatar must necessarily weigh both good and evil, pain and happiness, to bring about the middle ground that allows life to go on? Otherwise, she wouldn't be the bringer of balance."

"...then explain Raava."

"I'm sorry?"

"The spirit of LIGHT! Of good that's inside Korra, and every Avatar ever!"

The bartender simply nodded.

"You... you don't know," Asami gasped. She turned around, throwing her arms above her head. "Does ANYONE know?" No one else paid her any attention. At least, she thought they didn't; it was rather hard to tell when everyone further than ten feet away had one and a half heads on their shoulders. "Well," she grumbled as she turned back, "there's a spirit of light, and of darkness, and Korra hassh a great assh."

"Here," the bartender said as she filled a tall glass with something clear. Maybe it was gin. Asami hoped it wasn't vodka. "Drink this." Please be gin.

"I uhh," came a different female voice, gruffer than the bartender's; Asami caught the acrid whiff of tobacco as the stranger stumbled on the stool to her left. "I'll have whatever this girl's partying on. And I'll pay for both," she said, fixing her wavy brown hair behind her shoulders before sliding several yuans out of her pockets and onto the counter. Asami saw one fall to the floor, but its owner seemed oblivious. Or maybe two fell down?

"...right," replied the bartender, leaving the money untouched as she reached under the counter.

"I'm Mya-wei," said the tanned stranger, as a second tall glass of gin (it better be gin) arrived on the coaster set before her. "Couldn't help but overhear you," she hesitatnly said, stumbling on a syllable here or there, her wandering amber eyes finding some sort of fascination with the buttons on Asami's jacket, around her collar and her cuffs. But mostly around her collar. "Cheers?" She held up the large glass, to which Asami gladly brought her own, and the two drank a deep gulp.

Then they set the glasses down and blinked a couple times before yelling:

"A whiskey sour over here!"

"Make that two!" Mya-wei turned back towards Asami and for the first time made eye contact, just staring before she opened her lips moments later. "You uhh, wanna hear a funny story?"

"Actually," chuckled Asami, "can I tell one first?" She waited for Mya-wei to nod before continuing. "I'm madly in love with the Avatar, and I don't think she'll ever love me back, and spirits know if I'll ever see her again."

The woman wore a still expression, as if digesting what she'd just heard, but she quickly broke out of her stupor to call out to the bartender, who was vigorously shaking a tin can. "Add a couple shots of tequila to our order, please."

* * *

 

Their drinks came, and their drinks went. The bartender eventually convinced the two to have some water as well. The two chatted about... things; it was mostly a black out for Asami, but she gradually felt herself sobering at least slightly.

"I don't... I don't know how I  _can_ be different," Asami sniffled. "How I'm supposed to be myself at all."

"Som... sometimes," said the other young woman, with a focused gaze on the auburn drink in her left hand, her right arm draped over Asami's shoulder, "you just gotta let go. You know?"

"...No!" Asami wailed. "I  _don't_ know. I'm not like you, I don't know things about life."

"You do know," she persisted, "just do what you feel." Her voice nervously trailed off as Mya-wei continued. "Every now and then, let go and... dance."

"What?"

"You! With me. Maybe?"

Asami turned red in the face, but her face was already red; could it burn any brighter? Mya-wei  _was_ pretty, with that tanned complexion and ripped black v-neck... Asami secretly enjoyed less proper appearances, like hipster coats and patched up jeans. "Uhh, I..." She'd never been so lost for words in her life.

"Aww spirits," Mya-wei groaned, throwing her head to the counter. She mumbled something about too much vodka, before bouncing off her stool and dragging Asami off with her. They stood about arm's length apart, though she inched her way closer to Asami to speak. "I mean, dance with me." Her voice was deliberate and softer.

"Right now? I can't. I'm so out of it.  _Besides, I've" never heard this sort of music before. How do you dance to the mourning descent of a saxophone, sobbing down a staircase before soaring to the peak of festivity? What are the dance steps to a piano who whispers only in between screams?"_ _  
_

"With feeling, of course," Mya-wei replied. Whoops; had Asami said her thoughts out loud? How much of it did she say? "There's all sorts of styles for jazz dance."

"I've never..." Asami trailed off, looking slightly down and away with furrowed brows. 

"Really? Never? Blues, lindy hop..." Golden stars across her iris bloomed wide as she stared, her pupils going once over Asami's full height, from leather boots and pants to a buttoned motorcycle jacket, lingering around the lower half a little longer than the rest. "Wow. How has someone like you never learned jazz dance before?"

"This isn't really my scene," Asami confessed.

Mya-wei brought a hand lightly against her collar, throwing her head dramatically to the side with a face of mock distress. "Oh," she cried out, "how the saxophone climbs down the staircase of the spirits before celebrating with the STARS!" Asami frowned at the imitation as Mya-wei laughed. "Girl, if I didn't know better, I'd have pegged you for a slam poet."

"I told you, I'm an engineer." She did say that before, right? Whatever. "Actually, I've never been great with language. Truth be told, writing's hard." She scowled at the memory of writer's block, keeping her from addressing a certain frien... yes, friend, for too long. "Are you a poet Mya-wei?"

"I uh, I'm not," she murmured with coyly batted eyelashes, taking a very forward step before bringing her eyes up to Asami's. "But I can write the alphabet. With my tongue." She ever so lightly pressed her lips together, drawing Asami's attention to the fullness of her purple gloss. "Asami, I know you have the hots for another woman, and maybe I'm letting the moment here get the better of me." Her knee brushed against Asami's, her thigh nearly touching somewhere much hotter. The specks of reddish-gold in her eyes swirled in a warmer sunlight, desperate as fleeting dusk. "But I'm gonna say it. I want to dance with you, even if just for tonight, even if you forget about me afterwards. If I'm not wrong, you want something from tonight too." She leaned in, her hot breath grazing the inside of Asami's ear. "I can give you that something. No strings."

Asami shivered as a rush flushed her body with an awakened wetness: the sort of need she only felt when sweating on top of her bed linens, whispering Korra's name between fantasized moans. Now, her fantasy wandered elsewhere, her throat dry just from listening to the sultry ache in Mya-wei's voice. Her own pulse throbbed, in need of rhythm and touch.

"Okay," Asami whispered.

Two fingers lightly hooked around her wrist, and she followed their pull away from the bar, past the tables, towards the intoxicating call of the jazz band. They entered the dim space between oil lamps and faint stage light, mixed in the crowd of other dancing bodies.

"How is this going to work?" Asami nervously eyed the complex twists and turns of other couples; a nearby pair broke apart for a few beats before rejoining in a twirl, the woman gyrating her hips as the man held her hand above for the spin. "I'm still drunk, I don't think I can learn the moves."

"You've got this in your spirit. Just close your eyes," she said, "and your body will know the rest." A firm hand eased onto the curve of Asami's waist, and from there Asami could feel her partner shifting from one heel to the other; she, too, carried her weight to her right, sliding and lowering her center of gravity along the smoothness of the music. "Like that," Mya-wei smiled.

A second hand held the place just above the small of Asami's back, under and between the shoulder blades; the former hand rose from her waist and wove with Asami's fingers, leaving their joined hands slightly outstretched to the side.

"Lean just a little of your weight back into my palm and rest your arm along mine," Mya-wei said. Asami did so, placing a light grip on the shoulder, easing herself into the slight tension between her own weight and Mya-wei's support. "That's our connection. This is how we feel each other."

"Okay." Asami followed the shifting energy pressed at her back, turning from side to side at Mya-wei's prompt.

"I mean it though. I want you to close your eyes." The tanned woman gently adjusted Asami's and her own posture. Hesitantly, Asami complied, silently questioning how she'd see where to step and when.

From her hand on the other's shoulder, Asami felt the rise and falls of Mya-wei's breathing, the subtle changes in her partner's shoulders influencing her own. She felt compelled to breathe in with each lift and breathe out with each drop.

The ups and downs then spread to her knees, which slowly bent lower to support a sway from left to right, then straightening as the energy rolled into her shoulder. This repeated as Asami felt the connection from her back move to the left; she exhaled, a building of tension rolling from her low center of gravity into her thighs, pooling just at the corner of her groin, desperately close to a pulsing hot need...

That tension shifted again, bringing her center of gravity up, and again, her hips turning, her pelvis flexing, out of a burning instinct to follow the rhythm of music, of inhales and exhales.

This dance wasn't about the steps. Asami wasn't even sure if it was about movement at all. When Mya-wei brought her down, Asami waited for air, and she was fulfilled each time. Her entire body had become one sensuous throb, her pulse dictated by the speed at which Mya-wei decided to lead. The cries and wants of the saxophone, the soft then loud tones of the piano... their emotions had been transferred into ins and outs, pushes and pulls, until the distance between Asami and Mya-wei slowly vanished.

Asami felt a tide of warmth on the bare skin of her neck. Ample, soft breasts pressed into her's. Their bodies melted into an embrace, with only their interlocked hands at one side signifying a sort of dance at all.

With a painfully slow inhale, Asami rose with Mya-wei, eventually rising on the ball of her feet. She then nearly lost her composure when a wet tongue glided an inch across her neck. She shuddered as a sharp exhale betrayed the cold tingles that sparked across her. Then came the lead's exhale, and Asami rolled her weight down from her toes to her heels, with her hips and groin pressed into the other woman's... Asami gasped as she sank down into the thigh between her legs, pushing her leather covered crotch against much wanted contact. Her body trembled as that thigh unexpectedly dug deeper, rubbed harder; she instinctively arched her hips forward, to ride against it, but the moment evaporated as her lungs filled, brought up again to start it all over.

And with every exhale, their dance pushed a little deeper; each time they pulsed, Asami burned a little hotter, until she could feel her heart beating inside of her passion. She could no longer truly hear the music; her lips captured a pair of full and glossy ones, her breath mixed and woven with another woman's.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this is still a Korrasami fic.
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry that took so long to get out, but, I'm back and writing now.


	7. To Drown

Asami woke up that morning in an unfamiliar bedroom, her arms wrapped around a soft, warm body. Her fingers rolled over the other woman's exposed nipple, which quickly stiffened just like it did when she had nibbled on it, just hours earlier. Her other hand traced down Mya-wei's soft belly, which had been the bed of her kisses. She gently rubbed her nose along the crevice of a neck, enjoying the smell of the earthy sweat that commemorated last night's passion.

Her hangover, however, gave wave after wave of nausea at the sight of dawn's first light. It didn't feel as if she'd slept much, either. Carefully unwrapping her arms from the nooks and curves of her lover's body, Asami slipped out of bed, tiptoeing to her pile of clothing by the door. After all, she had to start the morning, just as she had always done, hangover or not.

...but what would be the harm if she slipped back under the sheets? To press herself into her lover's back, to feel their curves fit together just so, and to sleep to the melodic sound of this other woman's rough breath, to the subtle waves of her shoulders rising and falling. What was so wrong about wanting that?

Her hands were fumbling with a pair of black leather pants just as an image of Korra broke into Asami's mind. It was briefly pleasant, before the distant tanned woman was replaced by the much closer one.

Her fingers then found the muted radio, still clipped to her belt. She quickly exited the bedroom and closed the door behind her, entering what appeared to be a combined living room and kitchen space. Asami had barely flipped the mute switch off when an exhausted girl's voice buzzed through the speaker.

“-be alive, say anything.”

“Jinora, hey,” Asami murmured in a low voice as she held the talk button.

“Asami!? Oh,” Jinora gasped, “oh thank goodness, everyone’s been so worried. Dad hasn’t slept since the explosions, Lin found your motorcycle in the middle of the city. And no one knew where you were. We thought the bombs...”

“It’s alright. I’m alright. You can relax.”

“What happened to you,” Jinora asked. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been... safe. Listen, can you get Tenzi-”

“Hey love,” a gruff and tender voice croaked from a slightly open door. “Everything okay?” Even in the dim light, those amber eyes shimmered with softness.

Asami’s heart was caught between surprise (rather, panic, as her thumb flew off the talk button while flipping the mute switch) and lust. Part of her wanted nothing more than to push that woman into bed again, to make all her fantasies come true a second time. But Korra’s face came to mind once more. Asami swallowed the knot in her throat and sharply inhaled. “Yes,” she managed. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“It’s okay if you leave,” Mya-wei murmured. “I did say there were no strings.”

She desired to take that offer, to leave and forget this had ever happened. “I...” But it would be wrong to just vanish. She couldn’t pick up and go, as if they hadn’t moaned into each others’ ears, shared in each others’ passions, and betrayed their most sensitive parts. There'd be something missing. A lack of closure?

“You know where I’ll be. Another round before you go would make my day.” Mya-wei winked before gently closing the door. The sound of wrinkling sheets and springs marked her return to their lovemaking grounds. After letting the shivers roll down her spine, Asami flipped the switch on her radio.

“...hear me? Hello!” Jinora did not sound pleased.

“Sorry,” Asami sheepishly muttered.

“Who was that?”

“Just someone I met.”

“Must have gotten along really well, love.” _Fuck._

“It’s complicated! Look, will you please get Tenzin for me? I need to let him know I’m, well, alive.”

“I can’t believe you’re cheating on Korra!”

“Cheating,” Asami huffed. “Korra and I aren’t dating; she hasn’t spoken to me in a year!”

“But. You.” Jinora groaned, her exasperation palatable through the radio. “She’ll come around,” she sighed. “What on earth happened to you last night, Asami?”

That... was a good question. Asami remembered the airbending Triad and the rage that took her. She couldn’t fight the evasive bender, so she ran out of the Wilds until she got into a skirmish with the other Triads, and there was the explosion, which she had... prompted...

“I could have killed so many people.” Asami’s knuckles flushed white as she gripped the radio. “I don’t know why they bombed a random building, but I dared her, I told her to do it. What if that bomb was in the city? In a real hostage situation, I would be a murderer. I… already am.”

“Asami, you’re not a murderer. Take a deep breath. You’re okay.”

“I shocked a woman,” she trembled. “Right through the heart.”

“Asami, please listen to me-”

“I crushed her windpipe! And I tried to kill a man after dropping him, for no reason other than because I wanted him dead.”

“You’re not a bad person; you were stressed.”

“Oh I’m sure Zaheer was just stressed,” Asami spat back. Her throat burned from rapid, shallow inhales.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Jinora protested. “Please, can you tell me where you are?”

The words wouldn’t stop. “I think I even looked forward to it, the sound of cracking their ribs and hearing them scream. I was out for blood. I wanted a reason to break them, destroy-”

“Asami?” The door creaked open again, Mya-wei stepping out wrapped in her white sheet; her brow wore the wrinkles of concern and confusion.

“Oh no,” Asami muttered, retreating and backing into a couch. “This, we, I can’t, I can’t do this.” Now the guilt was fighting for the space in her gut where anxiety had already invaded, and the memories: the shivers from her neck being kissed, the crunch of a dislocated joint as her heel drove into a Triad’s shoulder, the drawls of instruments, the cries of agony from her electric glove, the cries of pleasure from a tanned woman’s electric touch, the sorrowful face of yet another Water Tribe woman...

“I couldn’t have been that bad in the sack,” the tanned woman tried to tease.

“In the WHAT,” Jinora cried. Her stern tone was abruptly thrown across the room as Asami’s arm whipped outward, hurling the radio towards the kitchen.

“It isn’t you, but I can’t do this.” The black haired woman held her arms tight to her chest as she looked away, setting her eyes on the carpet floor, the dimly tinted curtains, then the counter top, and finally beyond it to the door where her boots were. “I have to go, I’m sorry.” She started for the exit, her head spinning with too many chemicals to name a single emotion.

“Do you... want to talk about last night?”

 _Yes_. “No.”

“Can I call a wagon for you?”

“I can do...” Asami paused by the door, still holding her sides as her chest heaved. The thought of hailing a wagon off the street, surrounded by the rush of people on their way to work, did not strike a pleasant chord. “Actually,” the black haired woman turned around. “I’d appreciate if you did.

“Great,” Mya-wei smiled. “Wanna sit while I get changed?”

Asami nodded, walking quickly back towards the couch and taking a seat on one end. The bedroom door closed again, followed by the knocks of drawers and the crinkling of clothes. There was also an incessant buzzing from a corner of the kitchen.

The radio was fine there. Asami didn’t want to talk about last night anyways. Actually, she did, but she was only vomiting words, pumping her adrenal glands into overload. Dizziness beckoned her head to rest on a nearby cushion, but her tense sinews commanded alertness. Phantasmal jaws ate at her heart while her toes slowly took root, curling into the carpet.

Her eyes found the front door again. Her boots were right there.

The bedroom door behind her creaked open, revealing patchwork jeans, a gray v-neck shirt torn at the sleeves ending right along those shoul...

Asami looked away again. The sunlight was really starting to shine through those curtains now. It made her nauseous, but that was the only familiar feeling she was experiencing right now. Who knew a hangover would be a source of comfort?

A hand found the crevice between her neck and shoulder, fingertips lightly greeting her collarbone. “So the phone is outside of my unit,” Mya-wei said. “Could I make you breakfast first, before I call? I’ll bet you’ve never had water fire seafood fusion,” she sang.

“That sounds... unique.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the tanned woman laughed, her amber eyes smiling before she trotted off to the kitchen, her ass swaying from side to si- “Uh, I think your friend wants your attention.” Mya-wei waved the radio in her hand.

“Oh. Right. Just... okay, give it here.”

The radio flew from over the counter, landing safely on the couch.

“I can’t believe you’re ignoring me again," Jinora grumbled from the radio. "Didn’t we talk about being open with each other?”

“You’re right,” Asami interrupted, holding the button down. “And I’ll start right now. I’m glad you’re in the city,” she admitted. “Is business slow in the Earth Kingdom?”

“No. Dad needs me here though. I’m operating the radio to talk with our people out in the villages. They were craftsmen and farmers before, and now it’s like a war out there against the bandits. I try to keep the Nomads calm.”

“Heh,” Asami chuckled. “So, a little off topic, but do you remember our promise about getting lunch today?”

“I - I do. I didn’t think you’d-”

“Of course I remembered.”

“You’re calmer all of a sudden,” the airbender suspiciously interjected. “I mean, I’m glad, I really am, but are you okay?”

“I’m alright,” Asami said at first. Then she frowned. “Wait. Why are you asking? You know I’m not okay.” It was a surprisingly familiar situation.

Jinora squealed with delight. “This is such a step forward for you! So, tell me what’s wrong, and tell me where you are so I can come get you.”

“Really, I’ll just take a wagon back. My... friend will call one for me after breakfast.”

Mya-wei happily called out. “So you really are staying for food.” She briefly stuck her head out from the fridge before poking her nose back in. “I know I have sea prunes somewhere...”

“Your sack friend,” Jinora noted.

Asami groaned. “I can’t have this conversation with you. You’re not even a teenager yet.”

“I’m an airbending master! And... I read books. You can talk to me, girl to girl. I know what love’s like. Kind of.”

“No, you don’t, not that kind of love. Trust me, I was chaste until I met M... Why am I even having this conversation right now?”

“Asaaaaami!” Jinora whined. “Wait. Mako? Your first time was with Mako!?”

“Jinora, I will talk to you about anything,” Asami pleaded. “My father, Korra, Future Industries, my feelings, your feelings, but not my sex life.”

“Fiiiine.” Jinora sniffed from the other side before sliding in another word: “Mako?”

“I refuse to say anything more about it.”

“You had break up sex, didn’t you.”

Asami huffed silently to herself, chewing on the inside of her lower lip while a memory from her bedroom replayed:  _"We're done.This... this is for the last time."_

“Alright, really though, talk to me.”

“I have company,” Asami hesitated. “It wouldn’t exactly be private.”

“You can use the bedroom, if you’d like,” said a voice from the fridge.

Asami gratefully nodded, scooping herself up and slipping into the bedroom again, where she sat down on the mattress and poured her heart out, telling about how reckless she’d been, how angry she felt, and about the airbending Triad, where the bombs were... and then how she fell apart.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," Asami laughed.

"Nothing's wrong with you."

"I've handled losing both my parents. I've survived the near bankruptcy of my company. I came out on top of life and death fights. And only now, for no good reason, I suddenly crack."

"You need a chance to heal," Jinora mused.

"Heal from what? I don't even understand what's broken about me. I just know I am," her voice sank.

"Try to think less about fixing and breaking."

There were problems, and there were solutions. "What other way is there to see it?”

"How about light and shadows?"

"I... don't think I follow," Asami admitted. Shadows were just an absence of light.

"Metaphorically, is there any light in your life right now? Do you fix your problems, or do you create brightness?"

Even through the curtains, the sun poured onto the sturdy night stand and painted the azure-ruby wallpaper. Its rays touched the unmoving white sheets, grazed the orange, still lamp shade, rested upon the inanimate dark carpet, and reached around to brighten even a far flung pair of black lace panties in the corner.

"There's so much I should be grateful for," Asami muttered. "But I don't feel happy."

"You need to heal," Jinora repeated.

"I do drink a lot,” Asami chuckled. “That helps patch my problems for a while."

"There you go again with your fixing mentality. Problems can't just be patched. Spirits transform between light and dark versions of themselves, and people fluctuate somewhere in between. They change and adjust. They cry and smile, bleed and heal."

"How do I do that if I don't know where the wound is?"

"I think you do know."

The tanned woman in the kitchen wasn't a coincidence. She, too, had an athletic physique, a womanly persona alongside a powerful build, with a sort of adorable awkwardness.

"...how did Korra leaving lead to all this? To all my fuck-ups? Killing a Triad, goading them into hurting innocent lives... everything.”

"Your spirit is trying to tell you that you're hurt, and if you won't feel your own pain, then it has to show you another way. But you can change those feelings Asami, transform them into strength.” Those last few words stuck in Asami. When she didn’t say anything in response, Jinora gently filled the silence. “Make the trip South. Go see Korra."

"What about Republic City?"

"You and I both know that's not an excuse anymore."

"Stew's ready," came an excited summons from the other side.

Asami closed her eyes. Her heart felt heavy, felt raw. It craved for touch and companionship, for sharing and for passion. A quivering sigh forced its way past her lips, as she thought about how distant her love was now.

Her whole body quaked. Love? Did she just think that to herself? Or rather, did she just feel that? The gravity of her desire carved into her heart, clawing deeper and darker. Each breath gave way to another handful of heartstrings being wrenched out, cast aside and replaced by aching tides. But gradually, Asami allowed those feelings to take her. For the first time, she accepted that she was heart broken.

"...I'm not sure I know how to do this,” Asami slowly began, “but I'll try. Take my pain and make compassion, right?"

"You’re getting it. I believe in you."

Asami nodded. "Can we talk over lunch today?"

"We better."

"I'll stop by Air Temple Island. Will Pema mind cooking extra for me?"

"Not at all. It's just another pair of chopsticks on the table. I'll see you then; don't get into anymore trouble."

"Yes, master airbender." Asami put the radio down, paused, and left it on the bed. She emerged from the room, taking a seat on the couch by Mya-wei's side, where a coffee table before them waited with two spoons and steaming stone bowls of oyster-prawns, sea prunes, carrots, and sliced komodo sausages in thick, brown soup.

"A family recipe," Mya-wei beamed. "It's a blend of Fire Nation flavors and Southern Water Tribe stew. Try it!"

"It looks wonderful," Asami said, leaning forward to catch a whiff of the brine and spices. She slowly reclined back against the couch, staring intently at the meal and holding her hands on her lap. Mya-wei patiently waited, eyeing her guest before the black haired woman abruptly turned and blurted out, "look, about last night."

“I get it,” Mya-wei sighed. “And honestly, I’m okay.”

“You were... amazing, actually.”

Mya-wei raised an eyebrow before a grin broke out across her face. “Thanks. You were something out of this world, yourself.”

“Really? It was my first with another woman.”

“Get out,” Mya-wei playfully nudged at Asami’s shoulder with an extended palm.

Asami took the hand into her own, gently lowering and guiding it away.

“Sorry,” Mya-wei murmured. “I suppose...” She took in a long breath before sighing, ripping her gaze away and setting it on the food. “Let’s just... part on civil terms and eat some breakfast. Tell me how it tastes.”

“This is for the last time, but, I want to taste something else right now.”

“Are-” The tanned woman never finished her sentence as Asami's lips melted into Mya-wei's. This time, the black haired woman pressed herself on top, riding the waves of the arching and shuddering from the body below her. Pulling off the v-neck shirt, she then drowned her lover with kisses that could cross the world, lighting a fire with her tongue that reached all the way South. The next sounds to escape Mya-wei's lips were her burning moans, followed by the ocean sundering cries of Asami's name.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, I'm new to all this fan fiction writing. I'd love criticism (tell me something I did right, and something I did wrong), and I adore comments, but most of all, thanks for reading.


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